This year's production of pumpkins in Portugal has been very similar to last year, both in terms of quantity as well as quality, says Valter Coelho, general manager for Portuguese fresh produce exporter Valfresh: "Compared to last year, we have the same production volumes for our pumpkins. We've grown 2,000 tons of Butternuts and 3,500 tons of Muskat pumpkins. The quality of this year's production is comparable to last year as well, as we've seen good caliber pumpkins, with a lot of quality that will allow us to have product available until the end of April. We've already started to export both products since the start of October, and the feedback has been very positive."
One of the major factor benefiting the cultivation of pumpkins has been the weather, Coelho explains. "The climate this season has been very favorable for these pumpkins, during the traditional and vegetative cycle, temperatures have always been regular and mild. On top of that we've not had rain from May until the end of September, which for pumpkins helps a lot with the quality. It allowed us to store our pumpkins without them having had any rain, consequently increasing their shelf life."
Although the primary market for the export of Valfresh's pumpkins has remained the same, the Portuguese exporter has also managed to enter new markets this year, Coelho states: "Our main market is the Netherlands, consuming around 65% of our volumes. What's new this year, is that we're expanding our exports to other destinations as well, such as Austria and the Czech Republic. These markets have increasingly requested our products and appeared to be a good entry, with interesting volumes for this season. France has also been an important market for us, but only for the Muskat Pumpkin. Compared to the previous seasons, overall demand has been lower, largely because of Spain's offering, which continues to have very low prices, particularly for Butternuts."
According to Coelho, the cheap prices of Spanish pumpkins has made this season more challenging. "In terms of prices, we're having some difficulties. Prices are around 20 per cent lower than they were in the previous campaign, largely due to the low prices practiced in Spain. At the moment, prices in central Europe are very low and it's expected that these price levels will remain until the end of the year."
As other pumpkin producing countries are expected to run out soon, the Portuguese pumpkin exporters should have a better time in the new year: "Expectations for the rest of the campaign appear encouraging, as Spanish volumes are coming to an end. We hope that sales volumes and prices will increase significantly at the beginning of the new year. In our opinion, this will happen, and from what we understand from our contacts, the volumes in South Africa and Brazil will be much smaller this year, which will help us a lot here in Portugal, it will help this sector a lot in general," Coelho concludes.
For more information:
Valter Coelho
Valfresh
Tel: +351 263 595 009
Email: [email protected]
www.valfresh.pt