Greece suddenly has to deal with major snowfall. Although this could be a bad thing for many growers of various fruits and veggies, for Zeus the snow couldn’t have come at a better time. The harvesting of the kiwis has been over for quite some time, but the cold temperature means the company has a great year to look forward to.
Dangerous weather, that’s what local news outlets are calling it. Heavy snowfall, freezing temperatures and heavy winds, that will continue over the weekend. Christina Manossis, Marketing Manager for Zeus, claims the weather is not the worst thing ever for the company: “There are no effects on the kiwi plantations, as there was no heavy snowfall in the Pieria region, where Zeus is situated and 45% of the national kiwi production is grown,” she explains. “However, if these low minus temperatures continue to persist, this will result in higher volumes of kiwifruit for the coming crop 2019-2020. Kiwi trees need low temperatures during the winter to bear production.”
The weather does make for a grim sight at Zeus’ packhouse though: “If you stand in front of our packhouse, you would normally see mount Olympus. At the moment though, mount Olympus has completely disappeared, due to the heavy clouds and snow.” Manossis says. “So far we haven’t encountered any problems with transporting kiwis for export though, so unless the weather increases in intensity we should be okay.”
