A new report from Catalan fruit association Afrucat shows that Spanish apples account for a greater share of national sales today than five years ago.
According to Infolineal, home-grown fruit accounts for more than 65 per cent of apple sales while in 2015 one out of every two apples consumed in Spain was imported.
Joan Serentill, president of Fepex’s topfruit committee, said the figures demonstrated growing support from Spanish retailers for domestic producers.
“We are glad of the swing towards national apples seen in many supermarket chains, especially those in the capital, but we will have to wait and see if this trend is consolidated in the coming years,” Serentill stated.
Manel Simon, CEO of Afrucat, said the data “reflects not only a clear change in consumer behaviour but also the work undertaken by the topfruit industry to replace old plantations with newer varieties adapted to local conditions and thus offering a higher quality and more competitive apple”.
Despite the positive findings, the report said the current apple campaign had been “slow and heavy”, with little demand but stable prices since the beginning of the year that were enough to cover production costs.
The report also showed that there had been practically no change in pears, with national pears dominating the category and accounting for 80 per cent of total sales.
