Red Globe, the mainstay table grape cultivar of Peru has finally had to pass the ‘mantle’ of most produced grape to the white seedless Sweet Globe. According to Benjamín Cilloniz, General Manager of Exportadora Safco Peru S.A, in the past 2022-2023 season: “I have been analysing the statistics of Peruvian table grape exports since I practiced in Information while studying agronomy more than 20 years ago. For the first time the Red Globe leaves the first place to give it to Sweet Globe.”
During the just passed 2022-2023 season Sweet Globe reached 16.1 million and Red Globe was down to 14.083 million boxes. “When the new varieties arrived into the industry, Peru reached its highest volume of approximately 21 million boxes of Red Globe, pushing the prices down in every market. Red Globe was a very good option because it had higher productions than traditional seedless varieties and prices were not bad. We had some excellent years in Europe and the extraordinary years in China, reaching prices as high as the best prices of seedless.
"While traditional seedless varieties such as Flame, Sugraone and Crimson had much lower productions per hectare, maybe 50% less, it was very common to have even lower results. That’s why Red Globe had that position in Peru. At the same time, we had, virtually, only one green seedless available (Sugraone) so the offer of green seedless was very low. Sweet Globe appeared just when the demand of green seedless was at its peak, offering productions at the same level of Red Globe,” explains Cilloniz.
Changing trends in licenced varieties
“Also, the initial offer of keeping small volumes of licenced varieties was changed so it began a competition between growers to reach more participation in this new scenario as soon as possible. The strategy of keeping small volumes of these new varieties had to change because the market moved to a complete replacement instead of an exclusive offer. IFG took the chance of growing with Sweet Globe, which arrived earlier than Autumn Crisp and they took the chance of growing in Peru. We can produce almost 50% of the full capacity on a vine in 14 months after taking the plants into the field and 100% in the following season,” states Cilloniz.
Peru could’ve ended 2022/203 season with higher volumes
“In practice we can end the season with 71 million boxes. I estimate that some 700,000 boxes were lost due to the blockades of Ica during January and another important one - more difficult to estimate - of what was going to be the late harvest in Piura, as a result of the heavy rains that fell in the region more than a month ago,” says Cilloniz.
Red grapes might become scarce in future
“It is expected that traditional varieties will continue to decline in the coming seasons while licensed green varieties will continue to increase, driven by a significant growth of Autumn Crisp. As everything in this life is cyclical, it should not be long until the red grapes are the ones that are missing,” predicts Cilloniz.
For more information:
Benjamín Cilloniz
Exportadora Safco Peru
Tel: +51 517191126
Email: bcilloniz@gmail.com