The prospect of an early crop out of the Robinvale production hub is giving Australian table grape exporters hope of making a run at the Chinese New Year market.
Some early forecasts are putting the region’s harvest 7-10 days ahead of traditional start dates, meaning airfreight programmes of popular red varieties could arrive in Asia in time for the spring festival, which falls on 8 February in 2016.
“There should be some patches of Crimson Seedless and Red Globe available prior to Chinese New Year to airfreight into markets like Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia,” said Vince Brullo, export manager of Australia Fruits,.
Adrian Cordoma of Certified Fresh agrees a market opening could well eventuate, but hopes suppliers don’t imitate previous seasons and push immature fruit into markets to make the cut-off.
“It will be great if we can market sweet red grapes early, however if exporters jump the gun again for this season the outcome will not be as great, as sour fruit drops the market price,” he explained. “Last season was a perfect example of exporters trying to make the rush for Chinese New Year and they ended up crashing the market for a few weeks.”
To help regulate grape quality, the Australian Table Grape Association (ATGA) will appoint a maturity officer to inspect the majority of this season’s export consignments.
Consignments that meet industry standards will be marked with the ATGA stamp of maturity, which is expected to allow suppliers to attract a price that reflects the quality of their offering. The ATGA will be notified of any consignments that don’t meet inspection standards.
