David Buxcey of Angus Soft Fruits tells FPJ about export opportunities in Europe, as berry production increases in Morocco, and in Asia and the Middle East, as UK producers look to diversify in search of higher returns
FPJ understands Angus Soft Fruits has renewed interest in exporting berries to European markets. Why and where do you see potential?
Most of what we produce overseas is designed to come back to the UK market, but I think we’re at a point now where we will need to start exploring European sales again because of the volume we’ve got coming from some of our joint ventures in Morocco. We’re definitely having a look around at the moment.
We’re looking to start to diversify away from the UK market with some of our international production. But most of what we do is still going to be sold to the UK retailers.
We want to explore a wide scope of receivers across Europe. We’re speaking to people in central Europe – in countries such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland – as well as a few Spanish businesses. And we already do bits and pieces with a few Germany businesses. We’re feeling our way back into the European market slowly, slowly at the moment.
What export opportunities do you see for your new raspberry varieties, Ava Monet and Ava Dali?
In raspberries, we’ve seen a steady decline in production in Spain over the last few years. There’s a challenge with water in Huelva and the cost of labour is very high – raspberries are a very labour-intensive crop. Returns have been flat at best over the last few years, until last year, so we’ve seen a lot of raspberry production migrate to Morocco – primarily because of the lower cost of labour.
At the same time, there is growing demand for raspberries in the European market, and supply is lower than it used to be, which has pushed up prices.
This shift in production to Morocco has left dips between crops and big holes in the market at certain points in the year. That’s where what we’re doing with Ava Monet and Ava Dali is quite interesting. If we can get these varieties to grow well in certain countries, we can target those supply gaps and really focus on where the demand is in the market.
What is the supply-and-demand picture in the European berry market at the moment?
Across the imported season, the market for berries in Europe is now very turbulent. It doesn’t really align with how we work in the UK. Retailers in the UK like to lock in deals across the whole season, whereas the European market is like a heartrate monitor. It goes up and down with supply and demand. This is kind of how it should work, because by and large, the market is short.
The power is starting to sit with the growers again, and producers are able to come away with much higher prices than in the past. It’s not just because the market’s short, but also because growers’ costs have increased massively, so they need the higher prices. We saw it all through the winter last year. There was a lot of price volatility, and we paid more for berries last year than ever before in the import season. I don’t think that’s going to slow down or ease off any time soon.
Your business has also begun exports to markets in the Middle East and south-east Asia in recent years. How is that going, and where do you see further opportunities in those regions?
We’ve had our biggest year yet on exports to the Middle East and south-east Asia. Dubai and Singapore are our main two markets over there and it’s been going well. There’s definitely a lot more scope over there, and as an industry, with the help of British Berry Growers (BBG), we need to lobby to open trade agreements with some of those other emerging markets. Market access is a real barrier for UK soft fruit in Asia at the moment. By contrast, there is already more scope to send berries to Asian markets from places like Spain and Morocco.
Growing exports is one of BBG’s key pillars, but I think a bit more work needs to be done to get it up and running. There is certainly opportunity in Asian markets such as Thailand, Vietnam, China and India. From the UK, we’d primarily be looking to send strawberries, but we certainly wouldn’t rule out having a go with some raspberries as well. We think our raspberries have a good enough shelf life to withstand that airfreight journey as well.
The key to success is to have the right packaging solutions, to make sure the transit journey is as short as possible, and to ensure the chill chain is really robust. There are a few things to consider.
The good thing about many markets in the Middle East and Asia is they see a different kind of value in the product we provide. They’re happy to pay for quality. They really premiumise fruit over there and there’s a big gifting culture in Asia. They make fruit an event, and if you send them British strawberries, that’s a really big thing.
More generally, what role do you see exports playing for UK soft fruit producers in the coming years?
At the moment, exports probably account for less than five per cent of our business at Angus Soft Fruits, but it’s got potential to grow. BBG’s ambition is for the UK to continue to satisfy UK demand and also produce a further 50 per cent for export over the next 10 years. Ultimately, I’d like there to be more production in the UK. We want to continue to see our industry grow in the UK, not contract.
I think exports help to bring a bit of balance to the economies of what we do because generally speaking, you can charge a good premium on exports. This has to be the case because they are high-risk. If we’re sending pallets of high-value, high-quality fruit that’s picked specifically for an order, with high packaging costs, there has to be enough in it to cover the risk of those shipments going wrong.
As an example, our first shipment to Singapore this year was on the plane that hit bad turbulence, and a passenger sadly died. We had two pallets of fruit on there, which we lost. Unexpected things like that can happen, so you have to be pretty punchy on the numbers.
