With the start of the Corina pear harvest, the new hard fruit season has kicked off. Still, this early selection of the Conference is a little later than expected. "Due to the bad weather we had until last week, everything did go a bit slower than we predicted. The harvest is therefore a few days late, but from next week we will be able to start marketing in full," Willy Dillen, executive director of the Association of Corina Producers, told us.
"The first growers started picking 29 July. We thought it would be about seven days earlier, but we had to wait until the pears had the right sugar levels," he continues. "It triggered the decision to start harvesting later, which was okay, because the hardness levels were still high. We are now at a nice level in terms of sugars and, moreover, the hardness is still perfect. An additional advantage is that growers can also harvest more kilos than predicted beforehand, which is always nice. The volumes are not as disappointing as we thought a few weeks ago. It won't be a very large harvest, but it certainly won't be historically low either."
Distinguished by edible pear
On the sales side, on the other hand, Willy does not foresee an easy season. "There is still a fair amount of stock of old Conference that will be put on the market. In addition, there is always some pressure from growers who start too early with the new Conference pears. These are not large volumes, but unfortunately always give some pressure. It is of course what you get when you are in between the old and new Conference harvest, but I expect that the Corina will eventually find its way to consumers in the 2-3 weeks time we have before the new Conference will appear on the market in large numbers."
"The volumes are also not such that Corina pears will remain," he continues. "Everything does fall into place nicely every year, but some years things work out better than others. If the market is empty and people are eagerly waiting for the new pears, you still work better than if the market is not clean. Fortunately, we can distinguish ourselves in terms of sugars and taste compared to the old and early-picked new crop. The Corina is ready to eat for consumers and also goes straight to the supermarket without preservation. There are plenty of customers who prefer that and are willing to put down the money for it."
And so, all in all, Willy is still confident of a relatively good marketing season. A season in which a new partner in marketing has joined him. Besides Bel'Export, Koen Vanherck, Vergro and Devos Group, Dutch Urfruit has also joined as a distributor of the Corina pear. "The five companies nicely complement each other regarding the customer base, allowing us to deal with any situation. For example, we see that the smaller sizes are very popular in the UK, which is an important market for the Corina. Also, a lot of smaller 40–45 sizes will go to Scandinavia. And then the larger sizes go more to local markets, such as Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany. There is even demand from Spain, so the distributors will run a fine selling season with each its own customers with each its own requirements, I expect," Willy concludes.
For more information:
Willy Dillen
VZW Vereniging van Corina Producenten
Tel.: +32 (0)494 46 94 87
Email: [email protected]
www.corinapeer.be