Marcel van Rooijen of Verdi Import recently visited the Chilean and Argentinean fruit producing areas. He noticed that frost damage is enormously varied from area to area. "In San Juan they mentioned that in total about 70% of the white seedless grapes were lost. The two largest players, Expo Frut and Patagonia, have compared to last year hardly any grapes available, also because these companies concentrated on white seedless. The volume of red grapes - seedless and with seed - will as far as volume is concerned be about 30% less this coming season."
According to the importer damage by frost in Chile varies strongly from area to area.
"Most of the damage is at white seedless grapes, kiwi's and cherries. There are companies which lost 70% of the kiwi harvest, other companies again have 30% damage or less. Chile, for the time being, will focus on America and the Far East. Based on quality and development in the markets there will definitely be some fruit to come to Europe. However, it will a lot more difficult."
Marcel tells that the total fruit area in Chile does not change much. "In Chile one sees more changes per product and variety, but the total area remains about the same. In Argentina producers suffer more and more all the time under the present government, which makes the export more difficult every year. If there had been no frost, production in the grape area would certainly have been 30 to 40% less because the tax on export makes it almost impossible to export as a fruit producer.
"Europe remains necessary as a safety net, but it is not as important again as ten years ago. The new markets, such as China and Taiwan, play a much more important role these days. Also North and Central America have, compared to Europe, the advantage of lower transport costs and as a result a better nett result" Marcel continues.
About the results of the strikes for the fruit export in Chile the importer says the following: "Because of the frost and the decreasing volumes, which will be harvested, they expect less problems when packing and exporting the fruit. Last season tests were also performed in transporting by road to Buenos Aires and from there by ship to Europe and the Far East."
