"For the last couple of weeks, FruitOne has been receiving good quality lemons from it owns farms,” says Andres Ribas, Managing Director for Europe. “And this week we are receiving top quality Argentinian lemons (from Ledesma), what for many would be the best packing standard from Argentina in Lemons and Oranges. With great pleasure we will enter a European market that has already insufficient production volumes, overgrown sizes and lower quality lemons. Due to the climatic conditions that Spain and Turkey have suffered from in the last few months, it is clear that shelf life and sizes have issues to fulfil the market specifications”, he adds.
“Due to erratic shipping logistics, strong phytosanitary controls at origin and huge cost increases in shipping rates, the southern hemisphere has not been able to load, so far, enough lemons to respond to the European demand. Surely the situation will change for arrivals in the coming months, but for now we are experiencing a huge demand of our quality lemons. In short, the situation is clearly a mess. It is too complex to visualize the expected demands and returns, to forecast far in advance what is going to happen: war in Ukraine, logistics upside down in scheduling and costing, a changing climate affecting crops and infrastructure, inflation & social unrest growing in many producer countries, food & energy costs affecting consumption, currencies moving up and down, even Crypto markets shaking.
Currently FruitOne Europe is also receiving the first quality grapefruit loads from Europe in a very similar context to the lemons. In the meantime, FruitOne farms in South Africa are close to starting the harvest of its Tango mandarins for export. The fruit is colouring up nicely week by week, and thanks to consumer awareness of its eating and taste qualities, it has become a great success for European retailers and other specialized segments.