The Portuguese avocado season is in full swing, and the harvest of the Hass avocados is imminent. According to Hugo Melita, partner of Portuguese exporter Global Avocados, this will have an impact on the export of the Bacon variety: “At this point we've finished the harvest of our Bacon avocados and we're preparing to start the harvest of our Hass in the coming weeks. For the Bacon variety, the prices were quite good before the Bernard Storm, that affected mostly Morocco, the South of Portugal and the Huelva region. The amount of fruit that fell down, mainly in Morocco, caused the market to slow down and shifted clients directly to the Hass variety, pressuring the Bacon variety that is still available.”
Melita expects their main markets to be similar to those of last season, but Spain’s lower production could bring opportunities. “Demand at the moment is clearly for the Hass variety. Morocco has started already to harvest, but Portugal and Spain are not at that stage yet, although harvest will start soon. We see a high demand aligned with most of our clients, mainly Spain, France and Switzerland. Looking at our previous campaign, the most important markets were France, Switzerland and Netherlands. We believe that we'll maintain a strong demand in these markets, but we'll start to supply Portugal as well with more volume.”
“I believe that the production volume will maintain more or less steady and very similar to last year's production. We see that some orchards experienced a negative impact from the high temperatures during the flowering period and fruit setting period. This isn’t the case for all of the fields, but in general, there will be a decrease in production. Of course, the younger plantations will help to maintain the previous volume,” Melita explains.
The lower production could makes things more difficult in terms of supplying everyone, including their specific requirements: “The main challenge we’ll have this year will be to supply all of our clients according to their needs. Most of them wanted to increase volumes with us in the current season, but with the actual production this will be difficult. Our focus continues to be to deliver the best avocados with the highest quality to our clients, while maintaining a steady supply.”
Global Avocados will now be able to work with avocados year round, as the exporter has invested in their ripening and bagging capabilities, Melita explains. “We recently made investments in our warehouse and now we’re capable to ripe our avocados with four new ripening rooms, with a capacity of 56 pallets. We’ve also invested in a bagging machine and flow pack. Our goal is to reach final clients mainly in Portugal, Spain and France. These investments will also allow us to work the full 52 weeks in the year. Until now, we were only working with our own production. Global Avocados will start to look for suppliers or possible partners, in order to start our import programs.”
The state of the competition will influence the Portuguese avocado season heavily over the course of the campaign: “I believe we will have a difficult campaign, with a lack of volume mainly from February forward until Peru enters. Morocco started their season quite early, adding the loss of fruit due to Bernard’s storm, they will likely finish the season early as well. Spain has a huge lack of fruit and the volumes from Israel will be lower than expected, combined with delays in supply. Colombia will probably maintain their volumes, but the issues with quality and small sizes will persist. Prices are likely to sky rocket from that period forward. We just have to see how high the prices can go in the market and what will be the impact of these increase in terms of consumption,” Melita concludes.
For more information:
Hugo Melita
Global Avocados
Tel: (+351) 911 511 030
Email: [email protected]
www.globalavocados.pt