The 2023/2024 kaki season has come off to a very good start at the commercial level, as volumes have recovered and the demand and prices have been good. However, strong winds in late October and early November have caused some setbacks.
"The ripening of untreated kakis in the fields had been happening very quickly this year. Everything was going very well until the gales caused a lot of fruit to fall off the trees (around 20% of the production that was to be harvested), while damaging also the visual quality of another significant share of the kakis that remained on the trees," said Manuel Baides, manager of Grupo Autor.
"We have preferred not to harvest a lot of the kakis that were affected by the wind storm to avoid saturating the second-class market and try to prevent first-class fruit from being affected, although this is precisely what has been happening over the last two weeks," said the manager of Grupo Autor. Many growers have been in a hurry to sell the affected production and the markets have not been able to absorb such large volumes of second-class fruit."
"For now, the prices paid for first-class fruit have been very good from the start and remain high in the European markets for our most prestigious brands, such as Fruta de Autor and Roxo. We have also been achieving very good sales so far in overseas markets, especially in the Middle East. Following the wind storms, our activities have been slowed down a bit, as we wanted to see how the conditions in the kaki market developed," says Manuel Baides.
"For the time being, we are still doing our weekly container shipments to the markets of the Arab Emirates and we are waiting for the green light to start exporting to China, since we have batches especially intended for this market," said the manager of Grupo Autor. "We have met all the necessary protocols and undergone the relevant inspections, and we are not sure why Spanish exporters have not yet been given the go-ahead. This would be a good time to start positioning Spanish kakis in China, where we have already had experience with citrus for several seasons. Our Chinese customers are really looking forward to trying Spanish kakis."
A citrus season marked, for the time being, by a shortage of large sizes
In addition to the off-season melon and watermelon campaign, Grupo Autor is also immersed in the citrus season. "Prices are currently high in general, especially for fruit of larger sizes, since finding enough mandarins and oranges of the right commercial size is painfully hard and the crops are very expensive at origin," says Manuel Baides.
"Overseas, we started shipping oranges to Middle Eastern markets last week, but next week we will surely be displaced with the arrival of Egypt. In the meantime, however, we will continue to export clementines with leaf, both overseas and to Europe," he said.
For more information:
Manuel Baides
Fruta de Autor SL
T: +34 961 018 189
M: +34 615104344
[email protected]
www.frutadeautor.com
www.grupoautor.es