California’s grape season is progressing well and reports of fruit quality from customers to date have been good.

Susan Day, vice-president of international marketing at the California Table Grape Commission (CTGC), told freshinfo: “Demand is good - in the past decade we have had some record years and this will be no exception.”

The UK market is showing increased interest in special niche varieties, according to Day. “Typically the UK is a green and red seedless market, but now it is looking at black varieties and Muscat flavours. There seems to be a lot of interest in the UK in re-energising the category to prevent it becoming stale,” she said.

“Californian product is top quality and we will always have our place.”

UK retailers are now also looking to CTGC to organise promotions, which Day admits had fallen a bit flat in recent years. “The retailers have come back to us for this and they seem to want more and more, so that’s very positive,” she said.

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