Ahead of the first new-season apple forecasts, due to be published at Prognosfruit in Ljubljana during the first week of August, the European apple market is heading for a satisfactory end to the current season following months of generally positive demand and sales.
That's the view of Josef Wielander, director of Italian apple marketer VI.P Val Venosta, who told Eurofruit the market had been performing well since the start of the year.
'Since January, we’ve had very good sales in Europe and it promises to be a very good summer,' he commented.
'Red varieties in particular have been in constant demand, with stocks finishing ahead of the forecasts.
'As for Golden, we expect to sell the final stocks by the first few days of September.'
As for the coming season, Wielander said it was still too early to make predictions about the commercial prospects for the final few months of 2011.
'Currently all the signs are for a normal harvest, both from a volume perspective and in terms of quality,' he noted.
'However, much depends on the weather and on the general level of production in Europe.'
Val Venosta recently opened a new packhouse which has enabled it to handle 25 tonnes an hour of Golden apples and 32 tonnes an hour of red apples, using an advanced sorting system that will reportedly allow increasingly precise grading.
No comments yet