"Last Friday, we started marketing the first early Nimba and Pacific cherries of the 2024 campaign, but we didn't have more significant volumes until this Monday," says Carlos Echeveste, of the Frutaria Group.
"Initial forecasts pointed to the season starting about a week earlier, but the sharp contrast from high temperatures at the beginning of spring to sudden cold in early April eventually led us to start a week later," he says.
This campaign, Frutaria, which has plantations in Caspe, Zaragoza, expects to market around 1,800 tons of cherries, which are packed together with apricots in its warehouses in Lleida. "Due to the rains in April and May, we will have lower cherry volumes available in the first weeks of the campaign, during which we usually see a good demand and interesting prices," says Echeveste.
"Turkey, Greece and Italy are expected to have full harvests and to start earlier this year," says Echeveste. "Therefore, it seems that June will be a lively month for cherries, with more pressure than usual on prices due to a high supply."
Frutaria is also already immersed in its peach and nectarine campaign, which started about 3 weeks ago in its fields in Huelva and Seville, about 4 days earlier than in the previous campaign.
"Since we started, sizes have generally been somewhat smaller, but we expect to start having larger fruit available from May 14," says Echeveste. "The campaign is underway with a good balance between supply and demand. In recent years, some plantations have been removed and there has been an interesting varietal renewal, introducing fruit with more flavor, higher Brix and better sizes," he says.
In about 3 weeks, Frutaria will start with the peach and nectarine harvest in Badajoz, where they expect a normal production. "Between the end of May and the beginning of June, we will start with the first Black Splendor plums in Badajoz, of which lower volumes are expected."
The acreage devoted by the company to stone fruit production is growing at a rate of between 100 and 120 hectares per year, focusing especially on the ASF programs with the Regalin brands, and on Ondine for flat fruit. "We still have plenty of potential to grow with these outstanding varieties, especially with flat nectarines, as we now have a range of tasty varieties with a good agronomic performance that are going to be available for increasingly longer periods of time and with greater volumes," says Carlos Echeveste.
For more information:
Carlos Echeveste
Frutaria
T: +34 976 469 459
M: +34 606 69 87 32
[email protected]
frutaria.com
ondine-fruit.com