The Regulatory Council of the PDO Kaki Ribera del Xúquer expects the kaki Persimon® harvest to be between 10 and 15% greater than in the 2015/2016 season. The campaign will start in the last week of September.
"We expect a good production, with perhaps some more small sizes of the earliest varieties at the start of the season," explains Rafael Perucho, manager of the PDO Kaki Ribera del Xúquer. "We are not really worried about the slight drop in calibres, as each market has its own preferences and, for example, the UK tends to ask us for smaller fruit."
Despite the drought this summer, Rafael Perucho affirms that "we have not had any problems to provide the crops with the necessary irrigation, although ideally there should be more rainfall, since that would allow us to save on production costs."
The Regulatory Council will continue focusing strongly on the European markets, where it will organise promotional campaigns, and it will keep on working to open trade routes to more distant markets, such as Canada, Brazil or the United States.
According to the manager of the PDO, "the bulk of our kaki sales is absorbed by the European markets, including Spain. Last season, we observed a significant increase in their consumption in France, the UK, Italy and Belarus. Obviously, we will also continue working to open up markets outside Europe to have more marketing possibilities for our product, but we must be aware that this is complicated and time consuming, mainly due to the distance, and taking into account that the campaigns are quite short."
The biggest handicap remains the loss of the Russian market since the veto on the EU's exports was imposed in the summer of 2014. "Not having access to the Russian market is hurting us, not just because of the volumes they absorbed, which totalled around 14 million kilos, but because they purchased a lot of standard and second class categories, which are harder to sell to other markets."
Seeking to extend the campaign with new varieties
The IVIA, as well as other institutions, continues in the search for new varieties that can help extend the kaki campaign. "We would all like to start earlier and finish the kaki campaign later, but for the time being it is difficult to find plant material that does not exactly overlap with the production schedule of the Bright Red. It's something we continue to work on, as it is very noteworthy that we are able to have a four-month campaign with a single variety," states Rafael Perucho.