Eurofruit speaks to Anton Maris, manager for imported topfruit at Hagé International, about the upcoming Southern Hemisphere campain.
Over the next 3-4 months, how are you planning to organise your apple procurement programme and where will you be sourcing the fruit from?
Anton Maris:We are sourcing fruit from our designated partners in New Zealand, Chile and South Africa. The season will kick off with early Royal Gala from Chile arriving mid-March and will soon be followed by New Zealand at the start of April.
Our procurement is focused mainly on retail programmes in The Netherlands and Germany; we’re planning requested volumes according to their specific needs in terms of counts, packaging and food safety.
How do you aim to deal with the anticipated downturn in volumes available from South Africa and New Zealand this season?
AM: Based on good and long-standing relationships with our suppliers, we are guaranteed the volumes and sizes needed for our retail programmes. Although there is a downturn in volumes from South Africa and New Zealand, Chile will have a bigger crop this year.
It’s too early to say if this is going to affect the total market. If you look at the availability on sizes, it looks like Chile will harvest smaller sizes compared with last season. This will have a positive effect on demand for big apples and favour the NZ crop, which is looking bigger in terms of size.
How do you expect the market to develop over the coming weeks and months?
AM:In general I think there can be a good market for overseas apples in Europe again. Royal Gala is looking promising as Europe is finishing its stock quickly. Pink Lady seems to miss the connection to the overseas supply as well. So, if there is a window between Europe and overseas, there could be some strong pricing again.
On the other hand, the European market performed very well last season and exporters are hoping to achieve similar returns again this year; but if they send large volumes to Europe without the fruit being allocated to retail programmes, then we will face a different market.
