Spanish strawberry producers will have their fingers crossed when it comes to Mother Nature this year.
“We’ve had a number of problems in the past few years, principally due to the weather causing quality problems with the fruit,” says Bill Ashby, md of importers Alconera.
“We’re looking forward to hopefully having a better season than we’ve been having over the last three to four years.”
At the moment, the picture is looking fairly healthy over in Spain, he says: “Things are looking exceptionally good, although we’ve had some cold nights during December and the beginning of January.”
Fortunately, those cold nights have been offset by good daytime temperatures, according to Rodanto Imports. A spokesman says: “The weather has been extremely kind and there’s good clear skies at the moment. The crop is looking excellent.”
Ashby adds: “We’ve had precious little rain so we’re looking forward to a pretty good season. The weather has so far been on our side, but you can never be sure of these things.”
More importantly, he says, there are no weather forecasts for heavy rain for the next couple of months either.
Spain is the one of the largest producers of strawberries in the world, second only to the US, with 95 per cent of its production centred in the Huelva region. Total production is in excess of 340,000 tonnes of strawberries, says Ashby, with the UK taking around 80,000t of that.
The ongoing weather problems of the past few seasons have prompted a major shift in production methods for the Spanish.
Rather than leave themselves at the mercy of the weather’s whims, producers have been investing in tunnel technology to allow them to overcome some of the problems associated with the weather.
John Grieve, director of Lisons, says: “There’s been a real move towards the use of high tunnels. Some people are even moving to 100 per cent production under this method.
“It makes a big difference as it means they can still be picking strawberries even when it’s raining. With the lower micro-tunnels, when it rains you have to wait for it to stop before carrying on harvesting, and the tunnels provide very little protection. As a result you have to throw away a lot of fruit.”
It’s not just tunnel production either, according to Rodanto. The spokesman says: “There’s been a noticeable increase in hydroponic production. During the past few years, the total area of hydroponics has doubled, year on year.”
The company says the move is important for the sector, as it allows producers to have a much greater control on the production of strawberries. “The fruit produced is much more uniform and around 95 per cent of it is class I.
“There is a much greater investment cost, but it has a number of advantages - the lack of class II fruit, being able to pick seven days a week and the control growers have over the climate.”
Redbridge’s Ian Waller says the level of hydroponics production is significant: “There’s a lot of it being trialled this year, although there’s so much area gone over to hydroponics it’s hard to just call it a trial - it’s certainly a big commercial trial.”
However, he says it may not yet be the way forward: “It’s very early days and the jury is still out on hydroponics. We’ll see how it performs this year.
“Overall though, there’s a lot of young innovative growers out in Spain, breaking the mould and trying new techniques, which is excellent.”
So with improving production methods and what is potentially shaping up to be a good season weather-wise, most producers are forecasting a good volume this year with some producers anticipating double-digit growth.
The challenge for everyone, therefore, is to maintain a good price while remaining competitive.
However, Waller says he is not concerned: “There are category plans in place to move the expected volumes and there should be enough demand to take up the fruit.
“If we get some sharp peaks and troughs there may be problems, you can never account for Mother Nature throwing some crisis at you, but we’re confident of moving all our production.”
Another key way to maintaining a competitive edge is through variety, says Jim Parmenter managing director with Gomez, and, overall, throughout Spain, there have been significant developments in the varietal mix.
Those developments are having a positive effect on volume, says Waller: “We’ve got Ventana and Festival giving good early volumes through February and Sabrosa has been heavily planted and coming through well. All this means we have a significantly increased amount of class I fruit being produced.”
Ashby agrees there has been considerable movement: “There have been some big changes in varieties over the years, particularly in the last 24 months.”
He says the Spanish industry’s reliance on Camarosa is dwindling with a wide range of new varieties being grown. “We’ve been growing Driscoll varieties in Spain for five to six years, but the big strides we’ve made have represented a lot of catch up, which is healthy for the Spanish industry.”
He says there had been a lot of new varieties coming into production, which had now settled down to around five or six main types. “There are two that are doing particularly well at the moment, Ventana - which is giving the industry quite a lift - and Sabrosa which is set to become quite a significant variety this year.”
Gomez has also been working hard on its varietal offer, says Parmenter: “Our extensive variety trials over the last few years mean that we now believe we have the perfect mix of varieties.
“Up until recently, nearly 98 per cent of strawberries produced in Huelva were Camarosa. However over the past few seasons, Gomez and our growers have been trialling other varieties and working closely with breeders to develop the right berry for the UK market.”
As a result, he says the company has now completely eradicated Camarosa from its production, replacing it with varieties such as Sabrosa which he says is ideal for the UK: “It delivers the ideal characteristics for the UK market - bright red colour, superior sweet taste, a crisp fresh texture and good shelf life.
“It has allowed Gomez to start this year’s supply far earlier than their competitors, with the first Huelva fruit hitting supermarket shelves for Christmas.”
The company’s work on variety has also allowed it to introduce a strawberry offer to its new premium range Gomez Reserv™.
Available to the non-multiple retail sector the Gomez Reserv™ “Sweet and Aromatic Strawberries” will be using the Honor variety strawberry. Parmenter says: “The Honor’s characteristics encompasses the Gomez Reserv™ pledge - large berries, radiantly red in colour, exceedingly sweet taste, good shelf life and good availability.”
Despite all this development however, the search is still continuing for that one elusive killer strawberry.
Grieve sums it up: “Nobody is too excited about the new varieties out there, we’re just seeing how it goes.”
Rodanto echoes this opinion. A spokesman says: “While there’s a lot of different varieties being tried out, there’s no definite winner with everyone going after one variety. Everyone is working hard, trying to find the optimum variety. But no-one has found the secret yet.”
Of course, it’s not all strawberries when it comes to Spain, although the fruit is by far and away the most important, says Grieve: “All berries are doing well and are important, but strawberry is the main one, it’s definitely the king of the berries.”
However, raspberries are an important product for the Spanish and according to reports the season is shaping up nicely.
Ashby says: “Raspberries are looking good. Development has been good and consistent, we’ve not had an explosion in volume - the cold nights have kept it in check, but there’s been gradual growth, which is beneficial to producers.”
Grieve says raspberries are on the increase: “More raspberries are being planted, but as yet the early varieties haven’t been producing very much up until now.”
Rodanto says it is expecting a reasonable season when it comes to raspberries: “There were some problems late last year, but things have now improved so we’re expecting similar to slightly higher volumes this year.” The company says there had been ongoing expansion and investment on raspberries in recent years and it expects that to continue into the future.
Waller says the raspberry season suffered an early disappointment initially: “The expected volumes of early raspberries didn’t really materialise due to issues with canes and production problems.
“It was the first time we’d tried to get early product but it wasn’t particularly successful. However, we’re looking at good volumes for late January and going forward.”
All the importers agree that the one thing to watch for the future will be the blueberry.
Grieve says: “Although we’re not involved in blueberries to a great extent, we think it is set to become more mainstream in the coming years.”
Ashby agrees: “The demand is there for all berries, we’re been getting some excellent press in recent months on the antioxidants front and that’s been a good boost.
“However, I think blueberries will grow faster than anything. They’re still relatively small volumes, and I think we’ll only be shipping about 100t this season.
“We’re not the biggest player in that area, but that’s certainly something we’re aiming to change.”
In the meantime growers are facing a very healthy market, says Waller: “Blueberries are looking very good. The growth in the UK market will take care of all Spanish production. Spain can’t produce enough blueberries to meet demand in the UK so it’s a very nice position to be in for the growers.”
