A huge hailstorm affecting large swathes of plantations in Extremadura and Andalusia in Spain as well as parts of Portugal struck on May 30 and is making sourcing for the UK market difficult.
“We are only four to five weeks into the European stonefruit season,” said one UK importer. “But Spain is definitely having a difficult start. This is primarily because of the bad weather at the end of April and in early May when they had rain and cloud coverage and did not get the consistency of nice sunny days required. This general poor weather was followed by a massive storm last week. Some of our growers lost their entire crops in the hail, which was localised. It struck peach, nectarine and plum production.”
And this week the same importer has reported inclement weather in Italian producing regions and heavy rainfall and hail in France. “The situation is therefore a bit tricky going forward,” he said, and it is further compounded by strong demand from marketplaces experiencing good summer conditions, driving up consumption.
“We are not compromising on our specifications, but availability is very tight,” he said. “We are hoping that with some good weather in the growing area the situation will settle down by mid-June.”
At importer and supermarket supplier Richard Hochfeld, supplies from Spain are being supplemented with early fruit from Italy. “We are not really feeling the shortages as we source from both Spain and Italy,” said the company’s Jim Brown. “Nectarines have been a bit more difficult than peaches but now there is more volume coming through. By the end of next week, or beginning of the one after, availability should be good. The bad weather in Seville and Murcia has caused a fall of around 20 per cent of all stonefruit.”
Growers organisations in the worst hit parts of Spain have called last week’s storm “the final straw” following a poor spring. Representatives of COAG, Asaja and UPA are calling for urgent government aid, especially for growers who have lost their entire crop. There are also implications for future seasons with trees as well as fruit damaged in some areas.
Optimistic estimates at the start of the season are being revised well down with the Valencia region forecasting an overall crop of peaches at half of last year’s levels rather than the four-fifths forecast in April. The picture is similar for nectarines, plums and apricots with forecast crops of 50-55 per cent of last season’s levels, for example.
The major losses are in extra-early fruit, but growers are now also fearful that there will be overlapping of varieties from different producing regions throughout the season. “We have all had a bad time so far,” said Vicente Monzó of the Valencia stonefruit growers association Fecoav. “With such a big drop in production, we have to trust that the markets will perform well for us in order to compensate growers for such a short harvest.”
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