Current trends suggest that Greek Kiwis will follow the current market trends this November – heading into Christmas. The Kiwi market during Christmas has been good during the past few years. According to Christina Manossis of Zeus Kiwi SA, “During this season we face less competition from Greece, therefore our prices are relatively higher than the ones from Greek exporters. We also have stable programs with key supermarket partners. Although this is a good season we don’t really expect a dramatic boost in sales as much as we do during and after Chinese New Year, around January – April.”The kiwi industry in Europe has been getting quite competitive. “There’s some competition from Italy – but a majority of the competition is internal, between Greek exporters.
A deadly flood just hit Athens in mid-November. This flood led to power outages and a disruption of day to day business. “Unfortunately for our company we operate our pack-houses in Pieria, which was hit by the flood. It took two days for the water to subside and 3 days for us to go back to our regular operations.”
Zeus had to halt their operations, postponing orders due to loading issues and transportation problems because of the damaged roads. “We were quite lucky though that our produce was not hit hard despite our farms taking spot damages. Our grapes and kiwis were either already harvested or covered. We were also lucky that our clients were very understanding of our situation,” Manossis concludes.
For more information: