A Peruvian drive to open the Australian market to table grape exports from the South American country has been welcomed by the Australian table grape industry, despite the recent conflict with Chile over potential grape entry.
Peru’s Grape Producers Association (PROVID) announced last week in planned to work on access to Australia, and was working with Peru’s National Agriculture Sanitary Service (SENASA) on talks with Australian authorities.
PROVID’s president Alejandro Fuente said any negotiations for access would take time. “These processes can take three or four years – you have to have patience,” he told Agraria.pe.
Mr Fuente’s comments have had a positive reception in the Australian table grape sector, in contrast to the war of words that erupted in recent weeks between Chile’s export community and the Australian Table Grape Association (ATGA).
The difference between the two countries is their seasonality, according to ATGA CEO Jeff Scott.
“The ATGA is definitely not against imports of table grapes provided they are counter seasonal to our domestic season,” he told Chilean website Fresh Fruit Portal.
“If Peru were to gain access and if they are counter-seasonal to our domestic markets, then they would be in the same category as the US, China and Korea. From the Australian consumers point of view, it would be positive as it places table grapes on their plate all year round.”
Peru aims to supply table grapes to Australia from November to January, avoiding a clash with the bulk of the Australian season. Comparatively, the recently axed Chileans plans to supply the market would have seen white seedless grapes hit shelves on the tail-end of the local white grape season, but in the middle of the Australian red and black grape seasons.
