Chile’s grape growers will be diverting more fruit to raisin processing this season in an effort to control rising costs and poor export returns.
Local reports said growers could redirect as much as 10-15 per cent of the next table grape harvest to raisins, which have seen rising prices.
“The grape business has been difficult, with a US exchange rate with our peso of CL$480 `to the US dollar`, so some sizes and colours are not easy to sell,” Germán Schacht of grower-exporter Santa Maria told Fruitnet.com.
Growers are waiting to see what kind of prices Chilean grapes get on the US market when the season begins before deciding how much fruit to process for raisings, he said.
While production costs for export-quality fresh fruit have been rising severely over the last two seasons, the prices raisins have been fetching on the international market have also been growing, according to Juan Colombo from major grape marketer Subsole.
“Combining those two facts means that some growers have decided to leave certain blocks – `but` not many whole farms – for raisins and avoid the extra costs for exports,” he told Fruitnet.com.
“I think that this is not really significant in the overall volume, but reflects the position where the industry is and how costs are really critical.”
Smaller seedless grapes are likely to see the most attrition – varieties like Thompson Seedless and Flame Seedless are the most popular for raisins, although every variety can be used.
Mr Schacht explained the removal of lower-class fruit from the fresh market will probably not have a big impact on the availability of Chilean table grapes, but will help improve the prices of fruit left in the market.
“Prices fluctuate a lot, but nowadays are like US$0.4 per kg free for the grower,” explained Mr Colombo. “You can get the same money or less with sales of US$14 FOB `per carton of fresh grapes` in Philadelphia, just as a reference, and that is why people think about these options.”
Raisin prices hit US$2,300 per tonne last season, which was expected to carry into the new season at similar levels.
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