Van Ooijen Citrus has been importing minneolas from Wonderful Citrus in California for eight years now. The current season already started a few weeks ago. “We are about halfway through the season. The volumes this year are slightly smaller than last year, and as a consequence, the market is meandering on peacefully. Prices and demand, especially in the beginning, were good, the market was empty and they were absorbed smoothly,” Marcel van de Welle from Van Ooijen Citrus explains.
“In the meantime, slightly more are arriving in places, and prices are lowering somewhat, but the market is still reasonable. Now that the market is practically empty of other types of tangerine such as Nadorcott, perhaps there is more space for minneolas,” Van der Welle, who mostly supplies the minneolas to retailers and wholesalers in the Netherlands and Belgium, continues. “Fruit supply is not excessive, in any case. By the end of the season we expect a slightly easier sale. As always there will be a short periods between the final Californian minneolas and the first Peruvian ones, but, naturally, we try to keep that as short as possible.”
According to Van der Welle minneolas have been rediscovered by consumers in the last years. “The product remains unrelentingly popular. A specific group of consumers knows and appreciates that the Californian minneolas have something special. They taste delicious, are very juicy and have a special colour. For these reasons they are better appreciated than Turkish or Peruvian minneolas. And that is hardly surprising, they are a food and beverage rolled into one.”
