Spanish soft fruit grower-exporter Onubafruit has posted a 5-7 per cent increase in profits for the 2017/18 financial year after what president Antonio Tirado described as “one of the best campaigns in recent years”.
The group, made up of the cooperatives Coophuelva, Cobella, Freslucena, SAT Condado and Cartayfres, said turnover would reach between €205m and €210m, compared to €198m in 2016/17.
Speaking to agrodiariohuelva.es, Tirado said the reasons behind the positive results in the strawberry campaign were that “the market has been very fluid, we have been able to adjust the dates of production with new varieties, and because we are also getting, little by little, to improve the continuity of supply to the supermarkets”.
However, he acknowledged that the outlook for blueberries was more complicated due to the big increase in new acreage about to go into production.
For the 2018/19 season, Onubafruit said it plans to increase its production of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, persimmons and citrus. Manager Francisco Sanchez said total production could rise by as much as 15,000 tonnes next year.
Tirado noted that strawberries “are and will remain the dominant product in Huelva’s soft fruit sector and will play an even more prominent role within Onubafruit next season, since production will increase by some 10,000 tonnes due to the new acreage that Coophuelva will plant in the Gibraleón area”.
In terms of varieties, he said the group would continue to plant the strawberries developed by Fresas Nuevos Materiales, while in raspberries it was introducing new primocane and non-primocane varieties that were showing promising results on the market.
“In blueberries we have a number of varieties that stand out that will complement those we are already producing,” Tirado said.
“Once again, we will continue to harvest the earliest blueberries in Huelva and be the largest producers in the region.”
Tirado claimed varietal research would continue being one of the most important factors for soft fruit producers in the coming years.
“ We need to know in advance and with certainty how many kilos of fruit we are going to produce within a week, in order to close marketing programmes with supermarkets that cover a longer period of time; and, later, because we need to continue counting on varieties that give more satisfaction both to the client and to the farmers themselves,” he said.
Onubafruit sold 69,000 tonnes in 2017/18, of which berries accounted for 51,000 tonnes, citrus for 10,000 tonnes and persimmons for the remaining 8,000 tonnes.
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