There is a general feeling among European top-fruit producers that this is a make or break season for many. With margins diminishing across all channels in the last couple of years, growers and marketers are hoping that a combination of lower production, better weather and the end of the recession will bring better returns that draw them a profit and a chance to reinvest in orchards and infrastructure.
That mood is very much reflected in the Netherlands, one of the powerhouses of European horticultural production. But the optimism for the months ahead is still tempered with a significant degree of nervousness, according to Jan de Vries, director of Dutch importer and marketer Javri Fruit “I’m a bit more optimistic,” he says. “There are lower crops everywhere, and that traditionally has meant a good season. But you don’t know any more. The whole trade has changed.”
Recent figures from the World Apple & Pear Association forecast Dutch apple production to be 15 per cent down this year against 2009 at 340,000 tonnes, while pear production will be 11 per cent down at 267,000 tonnes. That should make for higher prices in the context of the overall 11 and 19 per cent lower EU apple and pear crops respectively.
De Vries, whose customers include UK wholesale markets, believes that if better margins do not return soon then the “whole agricultural business in the Netherlands will disappear in the next 10 years”, a scenario he says is borne out of the fact that many in the industry are no longer making a living wage. “They are surviving without minimum wages,” he claims. “Every day people are disappearing. And then supermarkets will say ‘where is the home produced fruit?’ and they will realise that they killed these people. A lot of people don’t realise what is going on on the growing side.”
The most profitable market at the moment for Javri is Russia, de Vries says, which is “the only country where you can make a profit”. However the risk of the Russian market, he claims, is “whether they will pay the bill”.
Not everybody is quite so downbeat but there is little doubt that even the biggest operators are putting a focus on finding ways of getting better returns. Fresh produce giant The Greenery, for instance, plans to secure higher margins for its growers through the further development of club varieties, initially in top fruit but later branching out into soft fruit and salads.
The Greenery’s latest club offering is Dazzling Gold, a variety of sweet pear which is owned Next Fruit Generation (NFG) and is currently being trialled in small quantities in the Netherlands. The variety is the commercial name for the Gold Sensation concept, and so far has 305t in trial production. The pear has a “very sweet, pronounced taste” that will “dazzle” consumers, according to a spokesman for The Greenery. It has a firm, compact and juicy texture that makes it suitable for eating as it is, peeled, or in a range of dishes. Capespan has already been signed up to plant Dazzling Gold trees to ensure year-round availability is swiftly achieved.
Dazzling Gold follows closely in the footsteps of NFG’s pear Sweet Sensation, launched four years ago, which will be available in commercial quantities for the first time this season.
NFG has already secured partners in strategic locations around the world to ensure year-round supply of Sweet Sensation, and is confident the newly-named variety will prove a hit with consumers looking for something new in the pear category. The two new pears will also bring a bit more variety to a category dominated by a select few, according to Philip Smits, ceo of The Greenery. “The volumes of Conference will increase steeply in the next few years,” he says. “We want more variety. There’s lots of variety on apples but it’s limited on pears.”
Sweet Sensation will lend itself to shoppers looking for a variety they can just pick up and eat, and overcomes the traditional problem with pears that consumers do not know how long to leave it to ripen, adds Smits. “This type of pear will be like an apple that you can just grab and bite. This product is very solid and you can bite it like an apple.”
Profitability and building more margin into pears is behind the rollout of the two new varieties, according to Smits. “The concept of marketing a club variety where, with co-operation through the whole supply chain you can regulate everything, is a very profitable way for all our partners to survive,” he explains. “Fruit and veg is a private label market and sometimes it’s driven like a commodity market. But we think this [club variety] concept can also be applied in veg or soft fruit.”
Other club varieties are more established across the continent, and another leading supplier, Fruitmasters, is predicting a good year for Kanzi apple sales following a successful season last time out. Production is expected to be larger at 25,000 tonnes across Europe, with Dutch sales forecast to kick off on 18 October. The Braeburn-Gala cross has been a hit with consumers and is unique in the apple market, according to chief executive Leonard Kampschöer. “We are very proud of the success of Kanzi, a success which it deserves. Not only is Kanzi a very beautiful apple, its taste is also very unique,” he says.
Hillfresh, a €130m importer, sources top fruit from a wide range of countries around the world, including Brazil and New Zealand. But it has also observed the trend for retailers wanting to source more domestic product and is keen to tap into that, according to consultant Martijn van Asperen.
Factors certainly seem to be conspiring to make this potentially the best season for suppliers in recent times. With new and more premium varieties increasingly being given shelf space by retailers keen to offer their shoppers exclusive points of difference, consumers having shown they are willing to extend their repertoires beyond a handful of traditional varieties, innovation on the way to shake up the rather tired pear category, and lower crop volumes meaning tighter supply, there should be no excuse for anything other than a good and profitable season ahead.
THE TECHNOLOGY ENSURING TOP QUALITY
The Dutch are not just leaders in production, but are also at the forefront of new developments in the technology arena, where a great deal is going on to produce equipment that will save growers and packers both time and money in the long term.
Manufacturer Aweta has been honing its PowerVision defect sorting and Inscan internal systems to give packers a key advantage in making sure they produce the maximum possible class I product. Its latest development, which has been trialled over the last month, is a PowerVision software upgrade that allows advanced russet detection.
Greefa will shortly introduce a pear polybagger which will meet demand for a packaging solution for the awkward-shaped fruit.
Meanwhile Dutch quality test specialist N-Sure is expanding and is aiming to establish a new office in South Africa by the end of the year. The company already has a joint venture in Chile, test facilities in Sweden and the USA and is also hoping to have representation in New Zealand within the next year.
The company acts as a test laboratory for the fruit industry, developing new methods of testing crop quality. Many of its tests examine maturation, the latest of which is the first commercially available test of its kind for Conference pears, a crop that suffers up to 10 per cent losses due to storage disorders. The new test has 90 per cent accuracy for predicting internal browning, md Monique van Wordragen says.
