With over 50 years of experience in the fruit and vegetable sector, Raphaël Primeurs was founded by Raphaël Ohayon and later taken over by his sons Georges and Albert. The company has progressively specialized in dried and soft fruit, nuts and olives. Their motto is to work with one product, one variety, one origin," explains Manon Gayraud, deputy director of the company based at Rungis. "We avoid multiple sources of supply in order to have the best quality at all times."
Raphaël Primeurs offers dried dates, figs, prunes, grapes, apricots, as well as a range of olives. Their nuts include almonds and cashews.
Favourable consumer trends
The demand for this range of products "used to be much lower, with few references and origins on the market." In recent years, dried fruits have won consumers over again. "Consumer trends are clearly in our favour. Dried fruit and nuts are now gaining in popularity. They are healthy products, recognized by sportsmen and women and recommended for snacking, as they are easy to eat and take away. This enables us to develop our product range and work on increasing our supply and references. This is a sector in which we can look for new products like cranberries or goji berries, which have become much more popular over the last 15 years," explains Manon Gayraud.
Raphaël Primeurs sells its dried fruit, nuts and olives mainly to open-air markets and market halls (supermarkets have recently started distributing bulk produce).
A brief overview of the current dried fruit campaign:
Small figs this year
The Turkish fig harvest (the only origin processed by the company) is still underway. The start of the season, set by the government for September 25th with the opening of export markets and the departure of ships on September 27th, "gives us hope of having the merchandise by mid-October." If the harvest turns out to be normal this year, the unfavourable weather conditions will mean that sizes will be small. "At Raphaël Primeurs, we mainly work with large or even very large sizes, for our entire range of dried fruit. For figs, our priority is to select size 0 or 'jumbo'. Despite the limited supply, we should still have some goods in large sizes.
Agen prunes available from the end of September
Raphaël Primeurs also offers Agen prunes in its range. "We process them in different ways, dried or soft (dried then rehydrated), with or without stone." As far as the season is concerned, "the forecasts predicted an excellent harvest of Ente plums (the only variety authorized for the production of PGI Agen plums), but the excess rain has led to losses in the orchards. In the end, the harvest will be normal in terms of volumes. Sizes should be large, but the fruit could suffer from a sugar deficit." The prunes are currently in the drying phase and will be available from the end of the month.
Soaring prices for grapes
The company's range includes Golden blond grapes and Sultana or Flame black grapes from Turkey, Chile and South Africa. This year, the poor weather conditions in Turkey have led to very high prices. Due to the drop in supply from Turkey, everyone is turning to the southern hemisphere, especially Chile and South Africa, which has caused prices to soar.
A very good year for apricots
Apricots have had a perfect year. "The harvest is good, there is plenty of supply and big sizes are available," according to Manon Gayraud. "With the significant drop in prices, we have managed to sell very large sizes, the super jumbo, at jumbo prices."
In November, Raphaël Primeurs will start selling Algerian Deglet Nour dates. The new crop of (fresh) Medjool dates has been on the market for over a week.
For more information:
Raphaël Primeurs
Bâtiment E3
69 rue de Carpentras
MIN de Rungis 1
Phone: +33(0)1 41 73 20 30
[email protected]