As representatives of the European top-fruit industry gathered in Denmark for the annual Prognosfruit conference last week, French apple producers were eagerly awaiting regional forecasts for the coming season. All eyes were fixed on overhanging southern hemisphere stocks and a certain hesitancy prevailed, with producers maintaining a sensible balance between optimism and realism, as usual.
“The French growers are hoping for a better start to the forthcoming apple season than the beginning of the current pear season in Provence,” says Bobby Barton, sales executive at Loire-Export, a grower marketing organisation specialising in fruit from the Loire Valley and south-east of France. “Oversupply of South African, Argentinian Packhams and Belgian conference plus a general lack of interest has ruined the start of the early variety, Guyot, in Avignon.”
So far projected apple volumes are in line with previous expectations. Barton says figures for the Loire Valley are estimated at 464,612t for the 2005/2006 season, which is a significant leap from the 383,084t marketed last year. Meanwhile, according to Jacques Vanoye, president of the French Apple Marketing Association, estimates for France as a whole suggest volumes are up by around four per cent on last year, and likely to reach 1.77mt. “Last year was a small crop and this is looking more like an average crop,” he says.
Barton emphasises this projection is still a far cry from the 2.2mt yields harvested by the country as recently as 2001/2002. However, in such a volatile market, large volumes can be both a blessing and a curse, he suggests, and a season’s success is determined by more than just crop figures.
“It’s all down to supply and demand, of course,” he says. “Traditionally there is always a slow sluggish stock movement from France at the beginning of the season due to oversupply of southern hemisphere apples in the UK and elsewhere, but if the domestic market is strong in France the higher crop may not prove a problem.”
Producers agree it is still too early to make any long-term predictions. With harvesting staggered across different regions, it will be at least a month before France’s market share is balanced against the overlap in southern hemisphere supplies, and the regional competition in France comes into play, Barton says. “Provence normally paves the way, marketing all the main varieties a good month ahead of the Loire Valley and south east. This weekend will be a good test with the beginning of the Royal Gala season in the Cavaillon area.”
Regarding the season at hand, despite some adverse weather conditions earlier this year, as yet, French producers are not expecting any catastrophic delays and fruit sizes are looking promising by all accounts. “The weather conditions have been different this year, we had frost, rain and all other conditions at different times,” says Vanoye. “I think we will be just a little later than last year, starting around August 20.” Barton expects the Loire’s Royal Gala to commence on August 25, with Golden Delicious taking over around September 10.
Last year, large-sized apples were plentiful, while a shortage of small fruit rendered prices much higher than average in the UK - France’s principal market for the lower end of the size spectrum. Sylvain Brard, export managing director of the Blue Whale Group, agrees this was a widespread problem in France last year, although not for him specifically. “We had a lot of large-sized Braeburn and expected Germany to take it but they had enough of their own or were importing from other countries and were not buying ours. It didn’t especially affect us because we are really UK-focused so we always organise thinning to make sure we have enough appropriately-sized fruit.”
However, Vanoye is not expecting a repeat performance for the coming year. “If the weather does not change too much I don’t think there will be any problem with sizes for the start of the season. There should be plenty of fruit available for the UK.” As with every year, the country has experienced hail storms but the effects seem to have been contained to specific regions. Barton says a few smaller growers in the Loire region have suffered crop damage at the hands of hail but thankfully the phenomenon has not spread throughout the valley, and brix levels have been promising in all recent tests.
In fact, Loire-Export is anticipating very good crop performance overall. “If sales depended only on quality the year could be a good one,” says Barton. “All is running according to plan. Our first main variety, Royal Gala, is looking good on the trees. The more recent and popular newly-coloured clones - Mondial, Galaxy and Brookfield - are already showing a good striped orange red even at this early stage, while the more traditional clones are just beginning to colour on the top of the trees. With three weeks to go before harvest the weather seems to have taken on a September feeling with not overly warm days and good cool nights to help colouration.” Having temperatures as low as 13°C in the early hours of the morning, has also helped procure healthy colouration, he explains.
However, Vanoye emphasises that no two years are the same, with prices being as inconsistent as the hazards wrought by nature. Barton concurs: “Last year French apples were marketed at extremely high prices at the beginning of the season but during the post-Christmas period values fell steadily and growers had some difficulty in finishing in the last months.” While last year French producers were fortuitous in coinciding the start of their harvest with a period of shortage in the UK, he says, the reverse situation could occur this year, with a poor start leading to a better finish.
Barton says the pricing situation in France tends to be on a more solid basis from October onwards, although the window of exporting opportunity for the growers is ever-diminishing. “Six or seven years ago we used to sell Golden Delicious to the UK over a 10 to 11 month period,” he says. “Now we can only sell from September to May due to the ever growing favouritism of fresh product from the southern hemisphere, regardless of the pricing situation.” As such, he suggests it may be advisable for French exporters to sell their stock sooner rather than holding out and speculating on success in the latter months.
Vanoye agrees it is vital to export as much as possible at the start of the season, to avoid the possibility of over supply. Therefore, he has started paying increasing attention to the possibility of expanding relations with importers and retailers in the Eastern Bloc, as well as the Far Eastern countries. Yet, despite a recent dip in exports, the UK is by far the most important market for French apples, he claims. “I think we will be sending around 167,000t this year, compared with an average of 179,000t over the last six years.”
Following the UK boycotting of French products in the late 1990s, the country’s presence in the UK market may have depleted somewhat, but he has high hopes that the mutual understanding and long-standing relationships forged with UK buyers will continue to hold French exporters in good stead. “At the beginning of the season we sell a lot of Gala in the UK, then the UK Gala arrives on the market and people want those so although we don’t leave the market, we only bring in small quantities because we don’t want to compete with UK growers.” Ironically, although a staggering 90 per cent of the French apple market is fulfilled by home-grown product, French consumers are not predisposed to think about the origins of their produce, he says. “You are proud of your own produce, in the UK. If UK apples are available you look for those first, but it is not true of France.”
Brard agrees that UK consumers are far more loyal than the French in this respect. He also says the British supermarkets are far superior in their segmentation of the category, which allows different companies, and even countries, to cater for a particular sector. With most supermarkets offering loose apples, as well as several different pre-pack and bagged lines, there are suitable options for all levels of the market, he claims.
“Our volume in the UK and Ireland last year was 28,000t, 16 per cent of the total French imports, which is up from 14 per cent the year before. This year I am expecting to do 30,000-31,000t,” says Brard. Having installed its own packing sites a few years ago, he says Blue Whale is in a strong position to serve the UK multiples, which are increasingly demanding premium pre-packed offers. By contrast in French supermarkets, pre-packed items are customarily recognised as being low-value produce.
“Fifty per cent of our apples are now packed at source, compared with 20 per cent initially,” Brard explains. “This means our customers are saving the cost of unloading and re-loading.” Furthermore, it is the ability to offer these kinds of facilities as well as an unfailing reliability that will differentiate between sources in the eyes of the retail buyers, he suggests. “The clients in the UK want to work with companies that can guarantee a 12-month supply and because of the volumes we handle we are able to supply them with Granny Smith, for example, right until the start of the southern hemisphere season if that’s what they want. We have all the main varieties.”
In terms of varietal offer, all parties are reporting increases in the UK’s preferred bi-coloured varieties, Braeburn and Gala, and green favourites, Golden Delicious and Granny Smith, as well as the increasingly popular Pink Lady brand and other new lines. At the same time, the traditional red varieties continue to be phased out in favour of more popular selections.
A vital supplier characteristic is the capacity for innovation, especially when it comes to marketing, Brard claims. “We have to be very aggressive in our proposals to clients, and very proactive in offering promotional activity, rather than just waiting for things to happen.”
According to Vanoye, this translates into the need to spend money, supporting generic campaigns as well as the promotion of new varieties on the market. Cameo and Jazz are two lines showing promise and, as a result, plantings have increased. However, he says it is important to keep production of such new varieties on a fairly small scale to retain their niche status, and it can often take several years until consumers have begun to recognise them.
Brard says Cameo is not suitable for Blue Whale’s orchards. Instead, several growers have started planting the Sundowner brand and Ariane is also continuing to see good growth, he claims. “We are expecting our volumes of Ariane to be up around 40 per cent this year to produce about 2,000t. It is a very good scab-resistant variety and Blue Whale now produces around 50 per cent of the French Ariane crop.”
With such steep labour costs, the inclination to schedule price promotions must be minimal at best. However, this is a necessary reality in the fight for survival, Vanoye and Brard surmise. “The French growers are concerned about labour costs,” says Vanoye. “In July we had a huge increase which means that the price of an apple at the farm gate is 70 per cent labour cost, which makes it difficult to have a good price at the retail level. The only way we can manage is to be very competitive with price and quality. We can’t produce massive quantities at a cheap price like some other countries, but rather, we have to make quality our focus and be the best. We can’t afford to be average.”
