The Mexican grape season has just begun and whilst May and June traditionally bear the country’s peak grape volumes, many growers are forecasting a less than bountiful harvest this year.
“It is going to be a difficult season in terms of volume,” concedes Juan Pablo Palazuelos from Proagro, which exports up to 60,000 cartons to the UK each year. “We had a very warm early winter and a very cold late winter. Normally it should be the other way around. We need cold weather for the grapes to go into dormancy and the warm weather for the vines to bud break with power. Because of the bizarre weather, the budbreak was very erratic, which translates into less grapes.”
Unfortunately, for Palazuelos, this translation will make fulfilling orders tough. He predicts that volumes of white grapes could be as much as 50 per cent down from last year and overall grape volumes could be down by around 30 per cent. Now, he says, he simply has to make the best of a bad situation: “…The big challenge will be to fulfil the committed programs at a price that is fair for both the grower and the final consumer,” he says.
The untypical temperatures meant Palazuelos’s grape season started the first week of May in small volumes and steady quantities are not expected until the week of two weeks into this month. He is now planning to try and extend the season to make up for the late start of the early Californian grapes, and hopes to be able to make it run until the American bank holiday of July 4.
John Pandol from Pandol Brothers paints a similar picture. Representing eight growers in Mexico, he also says that volumes are down: “There about two thirds of the volume of 2005 with the biggest reductions being white varieties. I believe Sonora set a record for the longest period to accumulate the first million boxes,” he says.
Typically, Mexican grapes are available from May to July and the country benefits from the ability to supply northern hemisphere markets when many principal growers in the southern hemisphere are ending, and before grapes from the Middle East and Mediterranean come on to the market.
Grape growing areas are situated mainly in Baja California and the Sonora Desert bordering Arizona in the north of the country. Within Sonora, the two main regions are Hermosillo and Caborca. These areas specialise in producing Mexico’s principal varieties Perlette, and Sugarone, white seedless cultivars, and Flame and Red Globe, red seedless and seeded varieties respectively. Generally the UK market favours the seedless varieties, while Red Globe is mainly sent to the US, a market that accounts for around three quarters of he country’s total grape exports. However, suppliers are increasingly looking to China to take some of its Red Globe volumes.
The country’s growers are also looking more and more to increase their market share in Europe. And, as one of the largest importers of grapes in the EU, the UK is an attractive marketplace.
But in supplying the UK, Mexican producers have a lot to contend with. Recent years have seen the country’s growers work harder at improving their market share in the UK, but, as many in the fresh produce industry pay testament to, increasing competition from other sources often makes trading difficult.
Despite the country’s strategic position in the spring supply calendar, Begnat Robichaud from UK supplier Chingord Fruits says the typical picture is changing to the detriment of Mexican grape growers looking for stability. Thanks to other countries’ ability to grow for longer, Mexico is being looked at less for program orders and more to make up supply from other sources, he says: “Mexico is becoming more of a gap filler each year as India manages to extend its season and supplies from Egypt and Israel come in earlier.”
But the potential problems facing growers do not end there. As well as a falling number of programs, producers also have to deal with increasingly high demands from UK supermarkets.
To try and improve Mexico’s long-term reputation and convey it as a growing nation with high quality and safety standards, many growers have aligned themselves with European certification processes such as EurepGAP.
There has also been a unified attempt from industry and government to establish a fresh produce brand under its Mexican Supreme Quality program.
While the Mexican Supreme Quality marque is being used as a promotional tool to create an identity for the nation’s produce, its most important function is to bring producers up to the standards required to use the brand, and is working very hard to benchmark Mexico with EurepGAP.
Pandol does not dispute that the quality seal has made some useful inroads for producers, but he says he fails to see the full benefits for all the country’s growers. He highlights that there are some arguments that say putting money, time and effort into making all Mexican producers EurepGAP certified is not a lucrative move. The UK has only ever been interested in the first 25 per cent to 35 per cent of the grape seasons and on top of this, demand from the UK appears to be falling, he says.
“I would guess at most the UK took maybe seven or eight per cent of the Sonora production a few years ago and that has been falling. It was around five per cent last year and I bet this year may be similar,” he says.
However, he does not write off the Mexican Supreme Quality strategy completely: “Much good work is being done in this area,” says Pandol. “But I see no benefit to EurepGAP certifying the whole of Mexico. Why do we need to go to the expense to certify the whole country when only a few companies and products will benefit? If the entire agricultural sector were EurepGAP certified, there is not even a guarantee that British retailers would accept it - one of the largest multiples effectively says EurepGAP is not enough and has additional criteria,” he argues.
Robichaud has also noticed an increase in standards required by the UK multiples and adds that this is one of the biggest challenges faced by Mexican producers this year. He says at least one retailer has requested that all fruit is packed in a packhouse rather than in a field and others, he thinks, could follow suit, making things tougher still. “It has meant that supplier selection has had to include whether or no growers and exporters owns or has access to pack house facilities,” he explains.
Pandol says this kind of dominance has to be reviewed and thinks the global produce industry has to intervene and make some key decisions before its worth the time and effort of gaining independent European certification. He says: “Each major multiple has its own requirements for packaging, quality, and the types of things it wants certified, and it is a full time job to keep up with everything.The logistics ofgetting all the materials in place andhaving all the certifications up-to-date takes a dedicated staff.Trying to match demandwith the volatile supply situationin theformula one-paced Sonora grape deal is not a part time job.
“Until governments get serious about prohibiting private companies from regulating health and labour standards, the proposal of certifying an entire country to another country’s market standard has no merit,” he says.
“With all the national and international organisations - with all their resources and studies and with diplomatic status and treaty signing capability - it does seem both incredible and arrogant that a food retailing company can supersede their work product,” he says, and thinks that some growers are wising up to this. “There is a small group of producers which are willing to jump through hoops, and that group is growing smaller,” he says.
However, despite all the demands, there is no doubt that the UK remains a very sought-after market, and if a producer is able to meet with a retailers terms, it can prove a very rewarding source.
Palazuelos says Mexican grape growers are proud of their commitment to quality and is sure that the country can produce some of the world’s fines grapes. He says the kind of work being done through the Mexican Supreme Quality program could help towards the long-term uptake for Mexican grapes in the UK market. “This will help with the reliability. It will increase confidence in Mexican products in some of the European markets where we are still not accredited,” he says.
He also says that while this season has suffered setbacks at the hands of a range of problems, new approaches to growing such as new plantings in earlier areas, better growing techniques and experimenting with new varieties are improving Mexico’s grape-growing prospects year-on-year.
While many growers are looking to other markets in continental Europe and Asia, he says the UK is still very appealing and many will continue to go after its business in the hope of more long-term stability. “If you can achieve the standards, the UK market is the place to be - it is a very well organised market,” he says. “We are trying to get the category managers to commit to volumes of grapes as we do with other products such as grapefruit. Mexico has to be seen as a reliable source for grapes, as it is seen in other products. We have to work towards that, and if we achieve it, the volumes will start increasing.”
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