Importers and category managers have had a tough job over the past year working against the weather in some of the world’s top stonefruit supply areas.

Kantar Worldpanel has valued the retail market for apricots, cherries, nectarines, peaches and plums in the UK at £376 million for the year to November 2012. That is growth of 6.9 per cent in value terms, and with some 166,000 tonnes sold last year, volume has also climbed by 11.6 per cent.

One UK importer said: “I am quite surprised at the growth rates. They are very reassuring as the season has been challenging.”

Indeed the southern hemisphere campaign has seen several challenges along the way. The main production centres for sendings to the UK market across the portfolio of stonefruit lines in Chile and South Africa suffered from bad weather at crucial times in the growing cycle. In the pre-season, unseasonably cold, wet spring weather hampered fruit development and then high temperatures at certain points in the summer were too extreme for some of the fruit.

“Quality overall has been very good despite all the weather issues, but it has made it very hard work,” one industry insider said.

Kantar records that an increase in shoppers’ basket size has predominantly driven growth and the data for the 12-month period shows that shoppers purchased on average 700g of stonefruit at each trip. Within that growth trend, plums and nectarines have been the major drivers. This shows that growers have responded to market demands for better-tasting plums and nectarines, particularly from southern hemisphere sources.

One category manager told FPJ: “There have been a lot of new varieties going in the ground, particularly in plums and nectarines and that orchard renewal is starting to come to the fore now.

“It takes four to five years from putting something in the ground to getting any fruit off the tree but now that is starting to happen we are seeing the market respond and uptake is rising.”

Among the best-performing varieties are plums Flavour King and Southern Belle. This latter variety – along with newcomer Constanza from Chile – is proving popular as an alternative to Angelino from South Africa. Historically Angelino has occupied the late-season window, but sometimes disappointed on quality. The market appears therefore to be finding the flavoursome high-quality fruit that will tide it over until northern hemisphere supplies become available in May. The new types are also grower-friendly, with yields up to 80 per cent of the high-yielding Angelino.

With attention turning to the Mediterranean basin, there have been concerns regarding some unseasonable spring weather and parts of Spain experienced a cold snap in February, which will delay fruit. In Zaragoza, for example, late snowfall will push the apricot harvest back a little.

Certainly the category is looking forward to getting into some continuity of supply in cherries after a poor northern hemisphere season in 2012 gave way to a difficult one from the southern hemisphere. “The summer in 2012 was a catastrophe for European growers,” says the category manager. “Then in Chile they had four heavy-rain events in the season which wiped out large parts of the crop. Some growers in the south of Chile lost 90 per cent of their crops and for the first time ever, some are considering putting up plastic covers. What we are looking forward to is getting into some good volume that we can really promote and sell. We haven’t had that for a year. It has been hard for growers, but hard for the whole chain really.”

California and Spain are both looking at a May start for cherries, more or less in line with a normal year and insiders in the UK are forecasting the largest cherry crop ever thanks to reinvestment by growers in new plantings. Volumes are set to climb by 35 per cent on the previous record and to be 300 per cent up on last year, one handler estimates. —

THE GLAMOUR OF CHERRIES

The Spanish cherry season has started and producer SAT Edoa has high hopes for the Glamour brand. Kathy Hammond reports

he Spanish cherry season is expected to start in April with extra early varieties.

A cold snap swept Spain at the end of February, bringing snowfall to higher ground, but early indications are that this was too early to have a detrimental effect on any cherry crops.

Earliest of the extra-early varieties and well protected from the vagaries of the weather is trademarked premium brand Glamour Cherries. Grown by SAT Edoa at its production base in the Lerida area of Catalonia, picking started even sooner, on 15 March.

The fruit is grown entirely under covers, with the company operating three greenhouse structures that cover 45,000 sq m. These protect the crop from most inclement weather as well as from pests such as birds and mean that SAT Edoa can start the harvest on the same date every year.

Volumes are expected to reach some 75,000kg, which is roughly in line with output from last season.

Fruit is predominantly destined for the export market and SAT Edoa’s markets for Glamour, in order of importance, are Russia, Dubai, France, the UK, Qatar, Singapore, Italy, the domestic Spanish market, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

Although commercial manager Oscar Ortiz confirms that plantings of new trees are not increasing “for the moment”, SAT Edoa is developing new markets for its fruit.

He says: “The process is generally repeated in each case. After the first year of introduction on a marketplace, the results are predominantly very varied, then in the second and third year we mostly see sales climb. There is usually an increase in sales of between 15 and 25 per cent.”

Undoubtedly a major selling point for Glamour is its extremely early marketing window – unprecedented in Europe.

Ortiz says: “Glamour’s great and exclusive difference is its harvesting period from March to April, just in the gap in production that exists between southern and northern hemisphere cherries.

“So really it distinguishes itself from other cherries in terms of its season, but also in its homogeneity and consistency in taste from the first cherry to the last, and in the customised packaging formats we offer in over-wrapped black bamboo baskets, wicker baskets and branded punnets for example.”

Not content to rest on these laurels however, SAT Edoa has been working hard on research and development projects over the past year looking at improving quality even further.

Ortiz explains: “We hope to see the fruits of this work by way of an even more excellent cherry whose taste really sticks in the memories of our customers. We are also really looking forward to our debut with Glamour Cherries at Loblaws stores in Canada this season.” —

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