Compañía Aguacatera del Sur is facing up to the campaign with a forecast of 16 million kilos marketed and an invoicing of 30 million euros. The leitmotif will be stability. “We are calmly facing up to 2024. A good early campaign is expected from Peru,” affirms Óscar Martínez, member and Sales Manager at Compañía Aguacatera del Sur.
Several sources come together at the end of January: Chile, Colombia, Spain, Morocco and Israel. Regarding the evolution during this period, Miguel Loayza, member and Purchasing Manager at the company comments: “As has become usual, there is a significant predominance of medium and small fruit. We are very cautious at the beginning of the Peruvian campaign, as it is the main supplier of the European market. There are some isolated valleys that are reaching the minimum dry matter to guarantee ripening, but it is very important for us to not take any risks on this point. We will see a greater development from the end of March onwards and we believe that we will continue to experience very disparate Peruvian supply patterns compared to previous years. This year it seems that the key will lie in how delayed the production in the important Olmos region is.”
The problems derived from water shortages are mainly affecting Spain, where the volumes are being clearly influenced by this problem. In Peru, the phenomenon of ‘El Niño’ has generally impacted the northern section of the country, where last year there were serious problems in avocado quality. “This year they are going to have some problems in terms of productivity per hectare. It is anticipated that some suppliers will have a lower volume of avocados, as occurred in the mango campaign, where the production has dropped by over 70%,” Óscar Martínez indicates.
According to Miguel Loayza, we must be “very watchful” about the quality of the production. “We have seen recent experiences with crops directly affected by the phenomenon of El Niño. In mangos, there has been a drop of up to 80%, in addition to the quality problems that we are witnessing on the European market at present. Likewise, grapes have seen a considerable drop in volume, and they are also experiencing quality problems, colleague experts have informed us.”
Regarding consumption, often retailers do not pass on the drop in prices occurring in the summer season and that would be very well received by consumers, and that could even result in new consumers, Óscar Martínez comments.
Loayza believes that “there is a growing trend in the retail sector to go straight to the source. This is reflected in greater understanding of the problems that the farmers are facing. We hope that they continuing to move in this direction in the search for better returns in the fields.”
Compañía Aguacatera del Sur is working with Peru (its main supplier), followed by Mexico, Israel and Colombia. They have also carried out some operations with Morocco, but at present these are merely symbolic. “Morocco is definitely a very interesting source for us, and we are trying to take significant steps in towards understanding and positioning with this agent, which is becoming more and more important in the winter campaign,” Loayza concludes.
