With the Northern Hemisphere top fruit season well underway Tony Harding, Technical and Procurement Director at Worldwide Fruit reflected on the transition from Southern to Northern Hemisphere supply: "Volumes on good quality SH fruit were tight, particularly Braeburn. The NH season was close to an average start date and good volumes were available from the start to maintain full availability. We successfully managed to meet up the Conference seasons and had a good supply of SH pear volumes throughout."
The Northern Hemisphere crop as a whole is one of the smallest in the last decade and demand has been strong for the fruit. "Looking at stock numbers for the end of November it would indicate sales are going well and fruit is moving at a strong rate. The UK saw an uplift in harvested volume compared to last year. Driven by growth from young orchards and a larger harvested volume than forecast. At this stage, we are not predicting any gaps in the supply of apples from the UK and Europe. The overall NH pear volume is again low with Conference being the biggest concern within our range. The Dutch and Belgian crops are lower in volume, larger in size profile, and have lower grade-outs when compared to last year. Meeting up with new season supply will again be a challenge with limited availability of good quality fruit."
The UK growing season was strange and difficult. Tony said they had orchards in flower earlier than ever before. "Thankfully, we avoided the frosts during the spring but we had a very protracted flowering period, which has resulted in a broad range of sizing and maturity factors to contend with post-harvest on the early to mid-varieties. Despite all the challenges, the UK picked a good crop that was close to forecast and ranked the second largest in volume in the last five years. Overall, the skin finish looks good on most varieties. Coloration was outstanding this year following a cooler late summer and autumn.
"Standouts for WFL would be our continuing growth in Jazz production. The harvest went well despite the wet conditions and the fruit quality looks excellent with good storability. Kissabel volume continues to grow and the demand is very strong for the brand. We have just commenced sales on UK Pink Lady™. Fruit quality looks very good this season. The coloration looks excellent. We have good volumes picked in optimum condition and in CA storage. We are predicting a sales period from early December through to the end of January for our UK Pink Lady™.
Sales of Jazz apples commenced in mid-October from the fruit harvested in the SE and SW of France. The fruit quality looks good and WFL plans to deliver a joint UK and European campaign that will conclude in mid-July. "Jazz continues to grow in popularity with UK consumers and we have ambitious planting plans in the UK to ensure we deliver the demand that has been created by the marketing campaign and high fruit quality delivered by the Jazz grower base.
"The UK and EU apple crop is in high demand. Very little overhang of SH volumes and a general downturn in volume from other product areas has driven increasing demand for apples in the UK marketplace. Typically we don't see huge swings in volume during the Christmas period, like other fruit categories. We are however seeing strong sales in the apple category as people have traded into apples in the last 52 weeks. The exciting new varieties, like Kissabel, complement the existing range to invite interest and grow the total category, alongside the nation's favorites."
For more information:
Tony Harding
Worldwide Fruit
[email protected]
Hannah McIlfatrick
Worldwide Fruit
Tel; +441775717005
[email protected]