Europe: Mediocre demand for raspberries and blueberries

23/03/2015

Although it seems that spring is coming, the consumer has not yet caught up when it comes to red fruits. "We are currently waiting for demand to increase"Explains Johan van Alphen, buyer of red fruits for Special Fruit. "This could change at any time, especially for raspberries and blueberries. Now the weather is fine, but the nights are still cold. If the sun continues to shine during the next few weeks, demand will probably increase".

Raspberries

Johan explains that January was fine, but that the market has been weak since February. "Sometimes you do not know why, but it shows everywhere; in the clients of several countries, in the wholesale market and in the supermarkets. Now we have Spanish and Mexican raspberries. Portugal will start soon too, so fruit is available, but prices are under pressure because the demand is not so good. There are no extreme volumes in the market, but we need sales to go up a bit. What stands in the way of certain importing countries is the high dollar exchange rate".

Blueberries

Something similar happens with blueberries. "In these moments they come from South America. It is already sending less, but that is having a limited effect. Everyone says they will get more expensive in a few weeks, but demand is not increasing. Spain and Morocco are now joining as origins and are quite aggressive with prices in relation to the volumes they have. Spain is at the same price level as Chile, but the Spanish product is much fresher. That is to say, Spain has barely started and prices are already under pressure. Real volumes are expected for April / May, so we are wondering how it will go then. In Spain they have the early Snowchaser variety, which will end next week, but we'll see if that's the case, because we also thought that a few weeks ago. An increase in prices would be quite normal before the Spanish season really gets under way".

Special Fruit provides strawberries and other red fruits throughout the year. Most of it is exported and marketed under the BerryFresh brand.

Source: FreshPlaza.es