“It has been much better than expected, to be honest,” said Marc Peyres of Blue Whale. “Some varieties finished badly, but, average will be better than expected early in January. At the end, it finished okay.” A change for the better in the situation with the euro was like pure oxygen, noted Peyres, and the prospects for the season improved accordingly. While Peyres was mostly upbeat, he did note that some apples didn't fare well this season.
“Golden and Granny apples did not do well,” said Peyres. “There was not super quality for Granny apples, so the pack-out wasn't good. We had a lot of big sizes in Europe, too many. For Golden apples, the market for those collapsed in November and didn't recover.” But for varieties like the Pink Lady, or others French cultivar –chanteclerc, tentation, the market finished strong. Royal gala started under excessive pressure in last September from European crop, but thanks to our quality and marketing position, we manage to reverse the situation and ending with acceptable result.
“People expected a jump in quantity early for Pink Ladies,” said Peyres. “We finished later, but that's okay, because we were able to store the fruit longer, it was no problem.” Though the closing off of the Russian market affected some European exporters who ship large quantities of fruit to Russia, like those in Poland, French exporters weren't as affected. They had to compete with more fruit on the market, but because French shippers have been depending on the Russia market to a lesser extent over the last several years, the impact from a Russian embargo wasn't huge.
“The closing of Russia was not of great consequence in France for the Gala, the Fuji or the Pink Lady,” said Peyres. “The ban will show that, in the future, just shipping to Russia will not work. So, the ban is a problem in the short term, but in the long term, it could be a good thing; we'll see.”
In final, we can see that market could be fragile and as company, we need to continue working hard on marketing consolidation. There is a lot to do.
