Jessika Pini
The sale campaign was rather complex for the Italian apple sector, congested by a high supply from producing Countries in Europe and closing of the Russian market which, before the embargo, absorbed a good part of the Polish production. However, since the first months of 2015 the situation has gradually normalized. In the second part of the apple campaign, the Italian production area of South Tyrol was especially favoured. As a matter of fact, thanks to the high technological ability of storing apples, it could postpone the placing on the market.
Available varieties
Gerhard Dichgans, Director of Vog Consortium (right in the photograph), states: ‘As for the individual varieties, Fuji, Red Delicious and Braeburn apples distributed by VOG will be available until the second week of July, and a few hundred tonnes of Kanzi and Pink Lady remain. Therefore, there is still space for Golden apple that, as usual, will connect the old campaign to the new one’.
Stocks up to standard
The low prices of the beginning of this campaign stimulated consumption, so absorbing the production surplus without causing significant accumulations in store: ‘This is a great result, if we consider that we were dealing with a harvest which was higher by 23% in comparison with the previous season. To date 13% of volumes have still to be marketed.
www.vog.it
The increase in prices in recent months and the prospects for 2015 production that certainly will not be fruitful allow me to be positive as for both closing of the current campaign and the next one’.
A final sprint of the marketing of Italian apples is also facilitated by the weak competition of apple production in the Southern hemisphere, which, due to the unfavourable dollar exchange, has high prices and its import in Europe decreased by 30% in comparison with last year.
