Italian apple marketer Vog still sees Asia as a highly promising market, especially for premium quality and new varieties that offer consumers an excellent taste experience.
Director Gerhard Dichgans says he sees particularly good opportunities in east and south-east Asia, although any future progress will depend in part on the ability of Italian officials to open certain doors to trade.
“We hope that the Italian government will soon be able to sign bilateral agreements on phytosanitary protocols, which will give us market access to key countries China, Thailand and Vietnam,” he comments. “We see further potential to supplypremium-quality Pink Lady, for example.”
While the group continues to focus on exports of mainly Granny Smith, Gala and Fuji to Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, the 2016/17 campaign was a more difficult one when it came to supplying markets in south-east Asia, Dichgans notes, as rates of exchange with the euro in some countries made European apples expensive.
The same was apparently true across the board for premium club apple Pink Lady: “With Pink Lady it was difficult to repeat the good season of two years ago, as customers were struggling with high prices/cost when recalculated in local currency,” Dichgans notes.
Furthermore, last autumn saw the market full of Southern Hemisphere apples, he says, in particular Granny Smith.
