Despite the heavy rain and hail in Turkey, Vfresh is not having any problems with the export of cherries. The cherries are grown over a widespread area, which fortunately means only a small portion of the produce has been affected by the weather. As such there has been minimal damage to the export of their cherries.
“We’re not a very big cherry exporter, we mostly export other vegetables. But when it comes to cherries, we haven't had any difficulties in the European market. For the Netherlands we export pallets by truck, but we also send cherries to Germany by airfreight.” Muhsin Riza, Agriculture department director at Vfresh, explains. The use of airfreight was reserved for Asia a couple of seasons ago, but like many other exporters, Vfresh has decided to invest more into airfreight for exports to Europe as well: “If my customer wants it, I’ll send it by airfreight. We get very good prices when we transport by air!”
Vfresh' cherries vary in size, ranging from 26mm to 34mm. Although there is no shortage, the rain did cause the prices of the cherries to go up somewhat as there were some losses in the harvest.
Turkey is the worldwide leader in cherry production. The country exported 54 million USD worth of cherries in April and May this year, compared to the 19 million USD last year. Besides Europe, cherries are being exported to the Far East and Russia. The World Cup has given the Turkish cherries a boost of 117%
