The good demand from Europe for blueberries and from China for cherries from Chile is making up for the lower volumes says Cristóbal Valenzuela, Commercial Manager LATAM, of Jaguar the Fresh Company B.V.
The first cherries of the Jaguar season that went to their office in China, Leopard.
“Nowadays, the entire Chilean cherry industry, is dealing with a cherry season affected by rains and less chill hours that affected the volume because we have less than expected as well as a delay on the maturity of the fruit.”
Despite the lower early season volume of cherries, China as the primary import market for Chilean cherries continues to see big demand. “Regarding the cherry market in China, the prices are staying on a high level, more than what was expected by most of the importers, this is due the lack of volume arriving and the good quality of the fruit. Now we saw the first container arrived with the same level of prices than the air shipments and with good quality also, that is good. Next week we expect the arrival volume will increase and every seller is hoping the market remains stable. But, it is hard to predict the market trends, especially for the weeks closer to the Chinese New Year, with a high concentration of volumes. The quality will be, like always, the key to get higher prices and keep selling in good levels after the festivities,” explains Valenzuela.
Chilean blueberries in demand
“In terms of the blueberry market in Europe, it had historical high prices some weeks ago due to the low volumes of fruit arriving, it is helping the growers to decrease their losses due to the drop in volumes. Now you can see the prices are dropping a bit, due to some quality issues and the expected increase of volume from Chile, but it is still a good market for the Chilean blueberries, with good prices for the grower and for the final consumer, which is helping to move the volume faster. We can see a strong demand from our regular customers in all of Europe, including the Baltic States, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe,” states Valenzuela.
The cherries and blueberries from Jaguar in Chile.
He says due to the climatic phenomenon of El Niño that has affected the South America production countries negatively. “We also come from a difficult Peruvian citrus season, where the fruit was not taking full colour and the volume of Peruvian blueberries is also much lower than expected. We appreciate different types of difficulty in every item that we are dealing with in South America, like ginger, avocados, grapes, asparagus, etc. And now in Chile you can see a delay also in blueberries, with much less volume delivered than expected until now, with all growers hoping to be close to the volume that they estimated before the season started,” comments Valenzuela.
Jaguar, The Fresh Company, is a Netherland based company established in 1934, with a lot of experience in the fruit business as importers and traders. They serve customers all over Europe and other regions as well. “And now, with all different kind of difficulties in the supply chain around the world due the climate change, we realized how important is to ensure the supply, choosing the right partners and to be close to our growers, supporting each other. For that reason we have offices in different regions, like Otorongo in South America, where I am in charge and together with my colleague Jose Barrientos, who is from Peru and I am from Chile. We manage products from Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Perú, Ecuador, Chile and other countries. And together with our other offices from Egypt (Pantera), South Africa (Caracal), China (Leopard) and South America (Otorongo), we can serve our customers around the world with top quality products year around,” concludes Valenzuela.
For more information:
Cristóbal Valenzuela
Jaguar, the Fresh Company B.V.
Tel: +56 9 92237688
Email: [email protected]
www.jaguarthefreshcompany.com