The supply of melons and watermelons, the summer fruits par excellence, is scarce at this time, while Europe is scorching due to the heat waves Cerberus and Charon, which have caused temperatures to reach record levels in various parts of the continent.
"At a domestic level, we've been having difficulties finding melons because Murcia has been affected by hail and rainfall issues; in fact, we believe that we won't have a normal supply again until early August, when the campaign will start in Castile-La Mancha," said the commercial management team of the company Eurofruits Import Export.
"Finding Galia or Cantaloupe melons is very difficult right now, as there are practically no commercial sizes available. For that very reason, prices right now are very high for all kinds of melon. For example, green melon right now costs over 1.5 Euro per kilo."
"As for watermelons, there is also a scarce supply right now. Almeria finished months ago, the campaign in Seville is almost finished, and in Murcia, watermelons have been affected by the same problems as melons. There is some supply in the Region of Valencia, but prices are quite high." In fact, the prices paid at origin and at auctions come close to 1 Euro per kilo, and those paid for seedless fruit far exceed that.
"The demand in the markets we are more strongly oriented towards, Germany and France, has continued to rise, despite these higher prices," said the company. "So, in order to be able to supply them, we have been importing melons and watermelons from Morocco. Our job is to always keep the prices paid to the grower-supplier as high as possible while aiming to meet the demands from our customers to ensure the supply chain isn't broken," they said.
"Besides melons and watermelons, we are currently also working with Spanish stone fruit. It is true that, in the case of nectarines and peaches, we are experiencing some problems with the sizes, but fortunately, that is not happening with other important stone fruits, such as plums, which we are currently exporting to the European market from Extremadura and Aragon."
