A steep climb in the price of Chinese apples over the past few years has international buyers nervously waiting to see what the first Fuji of the new season will fetch this season.
The picture is currently unclear, as China’s apple season is running later this year. Yet while Fuji remains the fulcrum of China’s apple export deal, the pricing of earlier-harvested varieties signals a worrying trend for buyers.
“Royal Gala collecting prices were up by almost 20 per cent,” said Rod Hill, China procurement manager at international group Capespan. “The first early Fuji Red General was `fetching` between Yn8.5 and Yn9 per kg – this was before the Moon Festival but again up by around 25 per cent versus last year.”
Mr Hill said the collecting prices of Fuji – effectively what vendor-agents for grower cooperatives are paid for the fruit in production areas after harvest – are expected to be high, especially after buyers and packers made good profits from local market sales last year. “For the export business, this is a major problem,” he warned.
Sanjeev Gulati of packer-exporter Yantai IG Produce concurred. “Apple prices this year are going to be much higher than last year as there is going to be huge demand from the domestic market," he said.
Indeed, mounting domestic demand has become the major factor in the pricing and marketing of Chinese apples over the past few seasons.
Alfa Fruit Packers, one of China’s leading apple and pear packers based in Qixia in the east of Shandong Province, said the domestic market is clearly showing an appetite for quality. “There’s better demand for good quality fruit,” noted the company’s owner Steven Leung.
According to most accounts, the Chinese apple season is running around 10 days later this year following a longer winter and a cool spring which delayed the bloom.
“In a normal year, the Fuji harvest would start in the first week of October whereas this year we expect it to begin around the second or third week of October,” Mr Leung said of production in Shandong.
One result of the longer winter is a trend towards larger sized fruit in Shandong this year, he noted, a point echoed by other packer-marketers. “The trees were dormant for longer, so there’s been more vigorous growth of the fruit,” Mr Leung noted.
Volumes too are up in Shandong, with some forecasts projecting the increase at 20 per cent, but more conservative estimates predicting a 10 per cent rise.
By contrast, production from Shaanxi, China’s other major apple export-growing province, is down, with some reports putting the decrease at 15-20 per cent, while fruit sizes are smaller.
“In Shandong Province, the apples are peaking this year on bigger sizes such as 72s and 88s, whereas Shaanxi is peaking on small sizes like 113s and 138s,” said Mr Gulati.
Most packer-marketers are optimistic about the quality of the fruit, although the critical period for coloration is yet to run. “The apples are looking very clean this year, with less russet and limb rub than last season,” said Mr Leung in mid-September. “We don’t want rains these next few weeks once the bags are removed as it can cause watermarking.”
Jack Gao of Goodfarmer believes the quality and appearance of the fruit this season will show a marked improvement on last season. “The sizes are a bit larger this year and if there’s no rain from now on, the colour should be better,” he said in mid-September.
The larger fruit will lend itself to certain markets, such as Russia, which is showing good growth for Goodfarmer, according to Mr Gao. Nevertheless, Heng Feng’s Peter Li noted that a lack of smaller sizes this year could affect volumes to other markets such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
