South African apple exports have shown a 6% year-on-year rise from weeks 1 to 12, with growers expecting good quality and volumes this season.

Overall the season is expected to register a 4.4% year-on-year export rise with a total of 332,937.5 metric tons (MT) in shipments.

Hortgro production manager Jacques du Preez said there was a lot of stock still around from countries such as Poland, France and Germany.

"So far prices are in line with last year. The quality, size and taste is good. We had some problems with sun burn earlier this year but nothing untoward has happened so far which will cause any problems."

Hortgro is expanding its ‘Beautiful country, beautiful fruit’ campaign in British supermarkets to Germany this season with the prospect of conducting similar iniatives in the Middle and Far East.

The initiative inlcudes tasting sessions, information and recipes given away in addition to fruit samples, on-pack competitions and offers, as well as advertising at the point-of-sale and on retailers’ websites.

The German promotion will work closely with the main retailers and include in-store promotions, supermarket tastings, leaflets and magazine promotions.

"After two successful years of promotion in the UK, we’re hoping to see similar results in Germany. Coordinating both campaigns gives us a consistent message of quality and season of South African fruit as well as bringing economies of scale to the process," said du Preez.

The main varieties to be shipped this season will be Golden Delicious, Granny Smith and Royal Gala.

The U.K. is still South Africa's largest market taking 29% of all exports, followed by other African countries at 24%, the Far East and Asia at 21%, then Continental Europe at 14%, the Middle East with 8%, the Indian Ocean islands at 3% and the U.S. and Canada at 1%.

Photo: Infoagro.com

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