France is looking forward to a very strong kiwifruit export campaign when it starts shipping in November.
An early end to the Southern Hemisphere season, coupled with a smaller Italian crop means global markets were already undersupplied and looking for kiwifruit in early October.
The green crop from New Zealand was lower this year as yields returned to normal after two exceptional seasons. Meanwhile, the Chilean deal started two weeks early and was wrapping up in mid-August, with some sources reporting a (3.4 per cent) drop in volumes.
Then, number-one European supplier Italy announced in late-September that its production would be 14 per cent down due to spring frosts in its main producing region, Lazio, and the combined effect of frost, Asian stink-bugs and disease in the Piedmont and Veneto growing areas.
For France, whose kiwifruit output is forecast to drop only by 5 per cent to around 60,000 tonnes (exporter estimates), this year’s global supply and demand situation promises strong demand and high returns right from the season start.
“In Italy there is less kiwifruit, and stocks for New Zealand are down compared to last year. In France we have about the same production as last year – down by only 5 per cent, so France is in a very strong position this season,” Jean-Baptiste Pinel, general manager of French kiwifruit grower-shipper Primland, supplier of the Oscar brand, tells Fruitnet.
This contrasts with last year when late Southern Hemisphere stocks in most overseas markets created French export difficulties early on. And the second half of the campaign really only improved thanks to domestic demand on the French market, says Marc Peyres, export manager of kiwifruit grower-shipper Blue Whale.
“This season the situation looks completely different, as markets in many places look undersupplied,” he says. “We already have a lot of demand, but we won’t start [harvesting] until next month (November). At the same time, offer from Europe, especially Italy, looks to be less than normal, so the combination of good demand and low supply should give rise to something quite unusual, that is at the same time very favourable for our growers.”
