European table grape market prices have been all over the place due to a recent supply rick. And certainly the detection in some of the 2010 Indian table grape crop of a plant growth regulator, chlormequat, in amounts that exceeded the European Union’s maximum residue levels did not help. But the common view is that there will now be reliable improvement in demand until the product’s season ends around the second week of May.
At the end of last year, the South African and Namibian harvests started late and volumes were smaller than usual. The fruit did not arrive in Europe until around Christmas, so prices were high in the lead-up to the festive season. However, Latin American growers had anticipated the small African crop and aimed to come to market early. Two Chilean regions harvested simultaneously - around the time that a coldsnap in Europe pushed demand down in line with the temperature - and the price fell.
“The taste is nice, with 16-19 degrees Brix, and all of this is very encouraging,” says Hillfresh International’s procurement manager, Paul Postema, who describes the quality of this season’s Indian crop as very good. Because Chile is running about 10 days ahead of where it was last year, there will be smaller quantities around in April, so Postema is “reasonably optimistic that we are climbing out of the depression”.
Eric Brückner, who is part of European fruit importer Timerfruit’s commercial team, was in India’s primary table grape production region Nashik at the beginning of January. He says that although it was cold, there were no frosts. “Night-time temperatures were low - around 2ºC - but that can be a positive thing for grapes,” he explains. “We have no complaints about the quality this year.”
The Dutch company works with Indian exporter Euro Fruits, which has just opened a packhouse in Nashik that Brückner describes as “the best one we’ve seen in India”.
On arrival at the facility, the fruit is cooled to 15ºC. Then it is packed and cooled to 0ºC before going into coldstorage. This year Euro Fruits passed a BSCI (Business Social Compliance Initiative) audit and brought India’s first-ever consignment of Fairtrade table grapes to Europe.
Brückner says that 2011 was a transitional period. “But we are now back on track,” he adds. “The number of importers and exporters in the market has been reduced and I think this was a necessary concentration.
“There were too many smaller players in the market, which became too fragmented. Some of them were unprofessional, but they have now gone.”
Good supply needs good demand and as the industry recovers that is re-emerging. Postema reveals that last year Hillfresh reduced Indian imports by almost half, in line with the Europe-wide fall because of residue issues.
“In a sense the decline in supply was a good thing because the number of customers fell away too - by around 50 per cent.”
Only a very small proportion of Indian table grapes are exported, but there will always be a ready supply for Europe, sources say.
Oversupply is a bigger concern than undersupply, but it should not be an issue this time. “Word from the growers is that there won’t be any oversupply,” says Dutch fruit exporter Verdi Import’s account manager Conrad Rijnhout. “India’s internal market is good and they are well aware that they lost a lot of money a couple of years ago.” -
