'This is the earliest we have taken delivery of the Shamouti for eight years,' said Dov Warmen, UK managing director of Mehadrin Tnuport Marketing. Fruit quality is reported to be excellent: highly coloured and even better than last season.
The crop is coming on stream earlier because of good rainfall in growing regions in October and November last year.
The UK is expected to take delivery of some 20,000 pallets of Shamouti this year; 95 per cent of it bound for supermarkets and the remaining five per cent for the wholesale trade.
Despite the early start, Shamouti is still expected to be available until mid-April before Navel Late takes over to see the season through into June.
Other Jaffa branded citrus is also benefiting from the favourable weather with Minneola also more than three weeks early and available in January instead of February. Suntina was in stores two weeks before Christmas filling a gap left by other Mediterranean easy-peeler sources as they suffered inclement weather.
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