The season for Valencia oranges is in full swing. For one Egyptian exporter that means they didn’t have a lot of time to relax after coming back from Fruit Logistica. After having made several new deals, it was about time to handle the big demand for the Valencias.
Valencia oranges seem to be very popular, hence they’re the main product for Egyptian trading company Mazeed Produce. According to Reham Kamal, the season is not without its challenges: “Currently there is a huge demand for Valencia oranges. Most foreign markets demand small to medium sized oranges of Valencia. This means that large amounts of the oranges of the current harvest are simply too large in size to be exported to these main markets. The low prices in Spain are a problem for us as well, as we have to add freight costs when shipping to Europe while also having to compete with the Spanish prices. As Spain is our main competitor, we need to find a solution.”
One of those solutions is simply exporting to a different part of the globe altogether. As is the case for other Egyptian traders, the Far East is an interesting market: “Like other Egyptian exporters, Mazeed aims to send its Valencia oranges to eastern markets like China. The most important market is Russia, but Russian prices aren’t that good, partly due to competition from cheaper suppliers in Turkey,” Kamal says. “We export to countries all over the world though. From the Netherlands, Poland and the United Kingdom to countries like Sri Lanka, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and India. We’d like to enter Germany as well, as this is an unexplored market for us.”
Although increasing the volumes of the Valencia production is indeed a goal for Mazeed, the company still has other priorities according to Kamal. “We’re not going to rush our production. Our main focus is to establish our name and brand with good quality fruit. This is also a reason we attended Fruit Logistica in Berlin. It was a good opportunity to increase awareness for our brand ‘Mazeed’, we completed deals with importers from China, Ukraine, The Netherlands and Germany. The biggest opportunity for our company came from talks with one of Europe’s largest retail companies. Let’s hope Asia Fruit Logistica brings us the same kind of opportunities!”
