Picota cherry producers from Spain’s Extremadura region are hoping to expand their exports to Scandinavia and the Baltic countries this season following successful campaigns over recent years in western Europe.
Producers of the Picota variety, which is only grown within Extremadura’s Jerte Valley, are hopeful of making strides forward in new markets after having established the product in the UK and, to a lesser extent, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
Pilar Díaz Flores, technical director of DOP Cereza del Jerte, told Fruitnet that growers, through cooperative organisation AC Valle del Jerte, were aiming to increase exports to northern European destinations, such as Finland, Denmark and Estonia.
However, she said most of the sector’s key promotional work for the season would continued to be focused on expanding established markets, including the UK, Belgium and Italy, as well as Spain itself.
Within Spain, this year’s promotional campaign, which will run under the slogan ‘Eres grande, pequeña’ (‘You are great, little one’), will aim to help Spanish consumers differentiate Picota cherries from other varieties and will emphasise the variety’s organoleptic qualities.
In terms of export markets, the Jerte Valley producers plan to focus their 2011 promotional efforts on Italy and the UK, where Ms Díaz said they will empasise Picota’s high sugar content and taste, while also “explaining the reasons for its ‘apparent’ defects”.
All of which, she explained, forms part of AC Valle del Jerte’s ambitious five-year strategic plan, during which it aims to continue growing as a group within the cherry sector, with the backing of the regional government of Extremadura and Spanish export agency ICEX.
Ms Díaz said the Picota producers hope to support these growth plans through an improved harvest this season, following a disappointing 2010 crop. “The Picota crop (in 2010) was substantially inferior to the normal average,” she said.
“We harvested 3,500 tonnes, when the average level is between 4,000 to 5,000 tonnes. As well as being short in volume terms, we were also short in time because the harvest lasted for little over four weeks.”
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