The year 2023 is coming to a close and it’s been a season of ups and downs. Yigit Gokyigit, commercial coordinator for Turkish fresh produce exporter Alanar states they were especially happy with their cherry season this year: “2023 was challenging for Alanar for some fruits due to the weather conditions. On the other hand, we had a good cherry season as the volume came out as we expected. Cherry is our major fruit, so having an accomplished season for that fruit was very precious and important for us.”
Looking at the up side of the past year, Gokyigit emphasizes the importance of a solid cherry season for the company. “We had a good cherry season. Alanar is not only an exporter of cherries, but also a major grower of the fruit. We have cherry orchards in three different locations in Turkey; our main location is in Afyon, but we also have cherry orchards in Manisa and Çanakkale. We harvested over 500 tons of cherry from our own orchards this year. Our orchards are still young, so we expect the harvest of cherries in these orchards to increase in the future. In five years, we will start to harvest over 1,800 tonnes of cherries annually. This season, we expanded in new markets such as South Asia and Africa.”
The year wasn’t without it’s challenges and the Turkish weather did not always play along, Gokyigit explains: “Weather conditions were the biggest challenge in 2023 for some fruits. Alanar has always been one of the biggest fig exporter of Turkey, but I would say this year was the hardest fig season I have ever experienced. The crop volume was very limited during the entire season and the season itself wasn’t very long neither. Since there were not enough fruits in the market, both grower prices and export prices were higher than in previous years. Fortunately, in addition to the Black Fig we buy from growers in Bursa, Alanar also grows the same variety in its own orchards. Therefore, we’ve been able to slightly overcome the volume shortage in the market with our own black figs.”
Not all the goals that were set in advance were met, mostly when it comes to volumes for certain products. However, for the other products Alanar can look back at a productive season, Gokyigit states. “Because of the effect of the unexpected weather conditions, our volume expectation was affected negatively for both figs and apricots. However, for our other fruits, such as cherry, plum, pomegranate and blueberries, I would say we achieved our goals.”
For next year, growth is the key word: “We aim to grow more fruits in our own orchards with higher quality in 2024. We expect to harvest over 1,000 tons of high quality, large size apricots in our orchards. Besides that, we’ll be harvesting over 600 tons of cherries and a total of over 300 tons of black figs, plums and blueberries as well. Our goal is to develop our operations with our business partners further. We’ll have a booth during the 2024 Fruit Logistica in Berlin, in order to come together with our partners, to evaluate coming seasons,” Gokyigit concludes.
For more information:
Yigit Gokyigit
Alanar
Mobile: +90 549 804 87 56
Email: [email protected]
www.alanar.com.tr