Despite political unrest, Israel’s fresh produce industry has developed rapidly, bringing many high-quality niche and mainstream lines to the forefront with the aid of the country’s many microclimates, notably in the Arava, Negev, Dead Sea and Sharon regions.
And what’s more, last month saw a new agricultural agreement signed in Brussels between Israel and the EU, updating the original agricultural agreement signed in the 1970s. This means that access to both markets has been greatly improved and now 80 per cent of the products will be exempt from all customs restrictions.
Some 35 per cent of all the exported fresh produce grown in Israel is sent to the UK and Israeli exporter Agrexco maintains that this is the country’s most important market, despite recessional worries. Its Carmel brand has come to stand for a sign of quality in the UK, which is backed up by its growers’ many credentials with GlobalGAP and the likes. With at least half of all growers in Israel exporting through the company, Agrexco has the growers’ needs at heart and achieving the best trading conditions for them is its main priority - no mean feat in the current economic climate.
“We have had a relationship with all the large multiples in the UK, as well as Marks & Spencer and Waitrose, for the last 45 years and we work together towards the best possible outcome,” says Shlomo Tirosh, managing director of Agrexco. “Of course, the economic climate has affected business and we have to be at the forefront concerning new varieties and fight for a good price -our interest lies with our clients.
“But the weakness of sterling has caused a significant amount of damage. In December 2007, sterling against the shekel was 8.6 to the pound; a year later, it was 5.8. For Israeli growers, this is a disaster: the cost of airfreight, seafreight, trucks - nothing has reduced [in price]. This causes significant damage for growers and we try to reduce that with good quality and consistency.”
Agrexco UK’s general manager Oded Yacovson emphasises that although sterling is low, the company does understand the importance of UK retailers and the meaning of standing behind programmes. “By cutting costs with further seafright and increasing quality, we will get through this,” he says.
And there have been many improvements in fruit and vegetable production in Israel, from both environmental and varietal perspectives. Some 65 per cent of the water used by Agrexco’s growers is recycled or saltwater, with the aim in five years’ time for it to be 100 per cent due to new desalination plants being built. The company is also in the process of changing its mode of transportation for its entire export total from airfreight to seafreight, for both cost and environmental reasons.
Agrexco has been concentrating on new varieties of peppers that it believes will revolutionise the category in the UK. Agrexco tomato and pepper grower Ido Nahum has been growing both ACE peppers - a type that is rich in vitamins A,C and E - and sweet green pepper Evergreen in the Mivtahim region.
“Our main aim is to develop new products for the market,” continues Tirosh. “Our new variety of strawberry, Dazzle, is the best in the world in my opinion, as well as Orly, which we export to M&S every week. These varieties have a longer shelf life, are very sweet and are 100 per cent red.
“We have also been developing new herb varieties, which get a really good price, and we have four to five new varieties of citrus that will be very important. We can’t compete with the prices at which some countries can produce fruit and vegetables, but we can bring added value.”
Tirosh admits that the number of available workers in Israel is causing a problem in the country and the fact that the Israeli government plans to limit the number of Thai workers coming into the country poses a problem in the long term. “The young do not want to pick product or work outside in Israel,” he says. “In the past, workers came from Palestine and we had 40,000 Palestinian workers. When we could no longer work with them, 26,000 workers from Thailand were allowed into the country instead. But now, like many other countries around the world, we have a problem with illegal immigrants. Farmers have now entered a special agreement with the government to cut the number of Thai workers to 19,000 by 2015. So we have eight years left of plentiful labour.”
In the next five years, Agrexco aims to send some 98 per cent of its produce by seafreight instead of by air. It has started to send strawberries by sea and will increase the product volume sent gradually.
“This is mainly a cost-cutting device,” explains Tirosh. “To airfreight we use one litre of fuel to 2.5kg of produce, whereas it is 200kg a litre for seafreight. We are using several techniques to make sure the quality of the produce is not affected.”
Blooming on plates
Agrexco has been working in conjunction with edible flower grower and packer Mizrachi to export its edible nasturtiums, carnations, courgette flowers and many others for 15 years, but has seen a massive increase in demand from the UK’s foodservice industry over the last five years. Courgette flowers are its mainstay, but other niche flowers available in “cooking bouquets” have sold well under the Carmel brand.
Mizrachi grows and packs 35 varieties of edible flowers on 20 hectares in Beer-Yaakov, central Israel. The product is grown in a similar way to herbs, in a running rotation grown in glasshouses to ensure a continuous harvest and strict hygiene levels. The company deals with bespoke orders and will source particular flowers, styles or colours for an individual customer’s needs. The flowers are airfreighted to the UK, where they will then have a six-day shelf life.
Husband-and-wife team Shimon and Shulla Mizrachi produce 200t of edible flowers a year, but started out with very small volumes. “Some 15 years ago, we only had nasturtiums, pansies and courgette flowers but, as demand increased, our range became larger and larger each year. We send a lot to New Covent Garden Market in London but, although it has increased, it is very slow on the English market compared to the rest of Europe, which is odd because the product was traditionally used there in Victorian times.”
Agrexco product manager for herbs Assaf Adar believes that a UK consumer-facing campaign is needed to promote the use of edible flowers in cooking at home and in restaurants. “I believe we should publicise this product through magazines and TV chefs, who are always looking for something special,” he says. “The potential of this product is much bigger and although Agrexco only sticks to one grower of edible flowers at the moment, we can always find more growers if demand were to increase.
“We also want to encourage growers in the UK to produce edible flowers in the summer time, so we can then take over in the winter. It is an amazing product.”
Organic doldrums
Organic carrot growers in Israel have seen a sharp drop in demand for organic produce from the UK, but Agrexco’s field production manager for organic roots, Havel Caduri, believes that the movement’s popularity will revive in 2010 - so much so that the company is investing in a €2 million (£2.23m) packhouse for organic carrots for growers in the Hevel Maon region.
Previously, a packhouse was used for both conventional and organic carrots on a rotational basis and now a totally separate line will exist in the 150sqm facility, which will be able to pack 10t of carrots an hour.
“We are the first people to use an optical grader in Israel, which will improve the product’s quality and colour,” says Caduri. “Year on year, organic has been growing up until this year in the UK, so it will become bigger again. It has not declined in Germany and other European countries.
“Organic carrots are really profitable and very popular with consumers. It is a cheap product, which makes it easier for us to sell it as organic and the big benefit is that people can eat them raw, so they have a really fresh and natural image.”
Coming out of the niche
Growing and marketing company Rani Bar-Ness sends 500-600t of sharonfruit to major supermarkets in the UK from November to February or March, which amounts to about 15 per cent of its total exports.
“Sharonfruit has become more popular, but we do get a lot of competition from Spain around November and December,” says company owner Rani Bar-Ness. “We try not to push our product at that time and store some for the second part of the season. Spanish product does not store well so our quality is much better.
“It is hard to get large fruit and that is what consumers want. Our harvest changes from year to year in a cycle, and this year we have less yield and large fruit.”
Agrexco sources from four sharonfruit farms in the north, centre and south of Israel and the product is kept in a temperature-controlled chamber where CO2 levels are measured constantly to make sure the fruit does not ripen before it arrives in the UK.
Adar agrees that the UK marketplace has been a tough environment to trade in recently. “Last year, it was all about quality, but this year it is all about the price,” he says. “We are working worldwide with supermarkets, the foodservice industry and different countries and it is a niche market in the UK. We are talking about high quality so our growers need a good price.”
Herb technology
Sea vegetable samphire made it into a major multiple for the first time in the UK this month through Agrexco’s Carmel brand. The slightly salty seaweed is native to the French and English coastline, but has found a home in Israel’s Dead Sea region.
Previously, Agrexco was sending 80-100t of the product to the foodservice industry in the UK, but now demand has reached the supermarket shelves.
Israeli samphire is grown in Dead Sea water and is available through the winter, complementing the short French and English spring season.
Over in Tel-Mond, Agrexco’s fresh herb packhouse packs up to 45t a day of a vast variety of herbs, six days a week, with a bespoke packaging system similar to the technology used in a Post Office. The computerised system sorts the orders into the right boxes for different destinations.
Agrexco’s Adva Inbar says: “After the herbs go through government checks through Plant Protection and Inspection Services, they travel to a machine built to sort mail in Germany that has been altered for our needs. A product manager saw it five years ago and realised it would be the best way to sort the boxes of herbs. The company in Germany built the machine. We keep the herbs at 2-4°C, apart from basil, which needs to be at 12-14°C, and they go through a metal detector. Each barcode is unique to that carton and has the name of the grower, traceability number and day of harvest. The machine reads the barcodes and knows how to send to a particular order. We deal with 70 products a day.
“Four years ago, we employed more than 30 people for this job - now with the machine, we need around seven.”
No comments yet