The manager from Espárrago de Granada SCA, Juan Sánchez Castro, reveals to Fruit Today that “up to now the most traditional format for green asparagus was that of 8 or 12 x 500 grams, but the 6 x 500 is becoming more and more popular, and countries such as Germany are opting for slightly smaller sizes, going from 16-20 to 12-16”. This change responds to purely “economic” reasons, to adapt to consumers’ pockets. On the other hand, Switzerland continues to lead large-sized asparagus sales.
The cooperative knows these markets first hand, as it exports a large part of its production to them, around 4 million kilos estimated for this campaign. This year they expect to grow by around 20-30% after the drop in production last year owing to adverse weather conditions. The company currently has a surface area of 600 hectares, 70% with the Grande F1 variety. However, the shortage of seeds occurring in recent years owing to the management changeover in the seed breeder company, Walker, meant that the door was opened to other materials such as Atlas F1 and varieties from the Dutch seed company Lim Group (previously known as Limseeds), which operates commercially as Sunlim.
