The majority of grapes are grown in the fertile São Francisco valley, which lies in the north east of Brazil forming the border between the Pernambuco and Bahia states. The major export markets are the UK and northern Europe, but there has been a lot of interest from the US with development of new varieties and it is hoped this will become a substantial market in the future. In fact the US will have an important role to play in handling the volume that is expected within the next five years.
Acreage continues to increase at a fast pace - each year the numbers of hectares in production increase in multiples of thousands. Although production costs are very high, the tropical climate allows for two and sometimes three periods of production to be programmed to match the more difficult windows in the yearly supply calendar.
This means the current payback time on an investment is around three years. This is just one of the factors encouraging investment not only from Brazilian producers but also from overseas. There has been an increasing financial outlay on rain covers this year, a reaction to rain damage over the last three seasons, using technology mainly imported from Italy.
Brazil represents around five per cent of UK importer Richard Hochfeld Group’s (RHG) total volume, but its importance is much higher as it acts as a bridge between northern and southern hemisphere production areas. RHG will import its biggest volume ever from Brazil this year. Neil Denny, head of grape procurement, says: “All of our fruit was programmed to be harvested two weeks earlier than last year, as the beginning of November is a high-rain risk period. This again proved to be the case this year, however thanks to the strategy employed by our growers, we escaped any major damage. Quality has been good in all varieties with the exception of Festival, which has suffered from poor eating quality.”
The major changes in grapes are in varieties with more producers switching from Festival, a trade name for Sugraone, to Thompson type fruits. Denny says: “The varietal mix is also changing with new plantations of Crimson, Thompson and Princess replacing existing production of seedless Festival.”
Volumes this year are down though, by between 20 to 40 per cent on a normal season. While plantings are increasing, poor weather has meant that yields have not risen in tandem.
Decreasing volumes this season have again been attributed to a reduction in yield, which many in the industry believe is a hangover from the heavy rains experienced in January, as the disruption in the cycle of the vines somehow affected the physiology of the plant.
This year there have been some isolated pockets of rain that has had some localised effects, but the overall damage was not great. Growing conditions in the main have been excellent.
RHG supplies Tesco with grapes, and Denny says: “The large majority of fruit being sold is still in bags although selection-pack punnets represent a sizeable portion of sales and are growing steadily, but not to the detriment of loose sales.
“It seems that new customers are being attracted to the category thanks to the broader range now on offer,” says Denny. There are now 10 lines of grapes available on supermarket shelves, whereas two years ago there were only three. This segmentation is having a very positive overall effect on sales.”
