A preponderance of large fruit has taken the Canary Islands tomato trade by surprise this season. "This has really caught us all by surprise and we don't know why it has happened," said Ramon Malo, a director of Allfruit which imports half of the UK's volumes of tomatoes from Tenerife. "The large sizes are not the most wanted in the UK and in some cases are even a little too large for the Continent."
Growers on the islands have been planting newer varieties in order to shrug of the disease problems that have plagued their production in recent seasons. "These varieties should have produced smaller fruit and no one really knows why they haven't yet," said Malo. As well as Dorothy and Boludo, growers have also been planting other newer strains which have not yet been named.
Malo reports that overall exports are down so far this season compared to last by 1.5million boxes. But considering total export volumes are of the order of 36m boxes, this small decrease is not a great cause for concern. "This could be due in part to the fat that some growers have planted later in order to have fruit available later in the year," he said.
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