While Italy faces a significant 24.7 per cent decline in production, other key suppliers including Belgium, Netherlands, Spain and Poland expect larger harvests, with market conditions looking more favourable than last season
Pear production in the European Union is forecast to increase slightly in 2025/26, but remains well down on the longer-term average, and significantly below its full potential, according to the World Apple & Pear Association.
Figures unveiled at annual apple and pear industry meeting Prognosfruit in Angers, France, showed that total pear production across the EU will be around 1.79mn tonnes, its fourth-lowest pear crop of the past decade.
That forecast is around 1.4 per cent up on the previous forecast of 1.76mn tonnes, although in reality last season’s crop itself ended up nearer 1.79mn tonnes.
Among the region’s key supplier countries, Italy stands out with an anticipated 24.7 per cent decline year on year to 302,000 tonnes. While last year’s Italian pears rebounded with around 400,000 tonnes – about double what it was in 2023 – this season’s crop is almost 17 per cent lower than the three-year average and a long way from the harvests in excess of 700,000-tonnes it saw in 2017 and 2018.
Bigger pear crops compared with the previous season are expected in Belgium (355,000 tonnes, +32.1 per cent), Netherlands (348,000 tonnes, +8.1 per cent), Spain (246,000 tonnes, +10.4 per cent), and Poland (110,000 tonnes, +10 per cent).
Positive signals
Analyst Eva Würtenberger of AMI told the Prognosfruit audience that market conditions looked better than last year.
“That’s for three main reasons,” she explained. “After Belgium, Spain and Italy finished their seasons, only the Netherlands remained active in the market, with remaining stocks of their dominant variety Conference mainly committed to supermarkets. So today we see an undersupplied market.”
In addition, she reported, pressure from Southern Hemisphere is much lower as the new season begins, unlike last season when it caused challenges.
And the distribution of available varieties is set to be much better, she added. “In 2025, we don’t see early varieties being so prominent so early in the season, something which was a disruptive influence in 2024.”
