Tany Nature continues to back innovation with new varieties that complete its lines, adding colours and size under the ensign of flavour.
2017 will be a very different campaign to the previous one. The autumn was slightly warmer than normal, the winter had enough hours of cold and the harvest is forecasted to be good, both in quantity and in quality. Nothing to do with 2016, the worst campaign ever regarding quality. However, companies from the sector such as Tany Nature made an effort to not drop the standards that characterises their brands, making an exhaustive selection and discarding large amounts. “The stores hardly noticed the problems, just a slight lack of flavour compared to previous campaigns,” explains the chairman, Atanasio Naranjo.
This year it forecasts producing 60,000 tonnes of stone fruit on the 2,800 hectares of its fruit and vegetable producer organisations. Along with this, it is working to look for varieties with which to increase its fruits’ flavour and complete the lines bringing different colours and sizes from May to September. As a new development, they will have quite a few variety innovations with the “accent on flavour,” and new formats; and they have increased the main production centre by 30% to respond to the increase in crop land, particularly in early crops. “Most farms are in their third year, and there will be an important increase in Andalusia, where we have 400 hectares.” This is the region where the campaign will start off, harvesting extra-early varieties of nectarines and peaches from the 25th of April in Lepe. These will be followed, from the 15th of May, by the new plum varieties of Villamanrique and Lepe, ending in Extremadura with apricots.
Commercially, after a first contact with the Chinese market, they are continuing with the essential learning curve. “We must be cautious when tackling this market due to its peculiarity and quality demands. For example, in China they are clear that the bloom (a grease or dust that covers the fruit) is a natural element and it is used to protect the fruit, whilst in Europe we remove it. This must be taken into account and some aspects be modified.” On this point, the need to be differentiated is even more important when approaching the customer. For this reason, there are plots with production that is exclusively for the Asian market, looking after every detail and testing each step. All of this without losing sight of the main competitor, California which, although it does not have the protocol yet, it does have a logistical advantage: its proximity to the destination. “Consolidating a market takes 4 years and in the case of China I don’t think we will manage it before 10 years have passed. I think that it will never be a volume market for the season because we are in the same hemisphere and we are both producers, although there will be some windows and niches.”
Tany Nature was once quite revolutionary and now it evolves moving towards excellence and opening its way in subsectors where it has not previously been present. One of its new developments is the start up of 100 hectares of asparagus under glass for the January and February window, with an investment of 70,000€/Hectare. In 2018 there will be new plant species in production from January to April, although they are not yet disclosing the crops in question.
