Spanish citrus growers may be facing a crisis and experiencing devastatingly low prices on some markets, but the UK is performing well for them, says an industry leader.
“The UK market is definitely the best organised,” said Antonio Muñoz, president of industry promotional body Intercitrus. “It takes a lot of fruit, but its consumers demand better quality. And they are receiving better fruit and consumption is increasing as a result.
“The market has grown from five kilos a head annually in the 1980s to 12kg a head now. That is thanks to easy peelers and quality. It is about taste - you can see a clementine almost as a vitamin pill, but first and foremost it delivers satisfaction and flavour, its nutritional properties are secondary. If the taste was not there, the market would not have grown.”
But he said that external factors were making it hard for Spanish producers to continue to compete, referring to labour costs in the Valencia region “10 times as great” as those in other Mediterranean Basin countries such as Morocco. However, there is more that Spanish growers and the authorities could do to help lift the sector from its prevailing crisis, Muñoz told FPJ.
“Growers are producing some varieties of clementine that in today’s marketplace are obsolete,” said Muñoz. “For example Oroval is not wanted by anyone anymore and growers have to realise that and replant. But they need support to do that. What we are asking our central and regional governments to do is no different to what the Italians received from their government a few years ago - we need the help with grubbing grants for the planting of new varieties, and we need that before next season.”
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