While apples and pears are put in the same botanical category of 'pome fruit', the market situations for the two crops are quite different in North America, where Vancouver-based Oppy is one of the market's leading fruit distributors. As always, transition into the Southern Hemisphere season will be key as containers arrive from Argentina, Chile and New Zealand. At www.freshfruitportal.com, we spoke with the company's apple and pear category director David Nelley about what might be in store.

How would you describe the current market situation and what we might expect from Southern Hemisphere pome fruit imports this year?

Let’s start chronologically with pears from Argentina. So the first charter from Argentina should arrive to a fairly good market in week 8, somewhere around the last week of February. It looks like domestic stocks of Bartletts are clearing out very nicely and there's a fair degree of retail interest for Williams Bartlett programs, so I think that is looking very positive.

That helps to set the scene for our import pear market. We had a very successful last two seasons with Taylor's Gold pears out of New Zealand and although the volume was affected by hail – disastrous hail actually in Nelson back in November - the volume still looks to be fairly good. There's a high degree of retail interest in Taylor's Gold pears because it offers something that looks and tastes different in the summer.

It is unique to New Zealand and we tie up about 85% of the volume at Oppy. I think the outlook for import pears in summary is looking pretty rosy.

So it seems like local stocks of Bartletts are fairly conducive to a good transition. How has the pear season been in general for the U.S. pears?

Movement's been good, quality's been good and we're seeing consumers and retailers move through good volumes of pears through the winter. People are looking for a nice, fresh green pear and the Williams pears from Argentina fit that bill.

Speaking of Argentina, negotiations have been ongoing between the Chamber of Integrated Fruit Growers (CAFI) and the Argentine Union of Rural Workers and Longshoremen (UATRE), and threats of strikes were recently postponed. Is that something you're monitoring and what are your thoughts on it?

There is a lot of risk buying fruit from Argentina, whether it be advancing cash down there, the state of the government, the threats from the unions; it's a place of business with a high degree of risk, and we wouldn't be taking that risk unless we had very good interest from retail programs. It's a scary place to do business for a lot of companies and a lot of industries but I still think that the risk for us is worth it this year – that's the business we live, that's our game.

And if problems were to arise in Argentina, could other fruit suppliers compensate volumes?

Certainly, from Chile and domestic USA, they would fill the gap. However, we've found a way to make it work in Argentina every year since  the mid-90s. Through thick and thin we've found a way to make it worthwhile through a range of interesting regimes down there. There always seems to be the way to work things out.

Argentina's fruit industry has historically shipped significant volumes to Europe and Russia, but both those regions have much lower currencies now. Does that mean they could be sending more fruit to the U.S.?

Yes and no. Argentina is actually one of the few countries that can access Russia, but the falling ruble is offset by that unique access they've got. I think the Argentinean industry ship different qualities of pears to different parts of the world, and in North America they rely on extra fancy and premium only.

The U.S. dollar dollar is certainly helping but I think any inflationary issues in Argentina are offsetting some of those gains. Their costs locally are inflating hugely.

And how about Chile's currency advantages with the stronger dollar?

It's certainly helping.

Going along the season timeline, how is Chile's fruit looking?

In Chile the pear crop is starting to be harvested now. We're seeing pretty good outlook for Asian pears – we're eager to get out with Asian pears firstly; we’ll have Bartletts and Packham's coming in, but I'm more interested in the apple market out of Chile actually.

Although the Washington State apple crop is huge, I don'’t think anyone would put their hand up and say it's the best quality apple crop. It's not a vintage year in terms of quality – we’'e seeing some interest coming from retailers, particularly for slicing and bagged apples, in the small size range, and I think although the Northern Hemisphere apple market would appear oversupplied at first glance, there seems to be some interest in select sizes.

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, what do you expect from New Zealand's apple supply?

That's really interesting. New Zealand has been affected and continues to be affected by hail – I heard there was even hail in Hawke's Bay this week, so it's very difficult to get a handle on what the volume is right now. Suffice to say volume seems to be down.

The interesting thing for us at Oppy, the New Zealand apple crop is all about Jazz and Envy. Those two varieties alone will constitute the majority of our varieties out of New Zealand; adding to that we'll have specialty varieties from an exporter called Heartland – Ambrosia, Eve and Smitten. So we're very much interested and eager for import volumes from New Zealand, because our apple program really evolves around proprietary varieties.

It's interesting. We actually sell more Enza-branded grown in the USA than we do in New Zealand.

Out of Washington State this winter we are looking at 65% sold on Envy, 36% sold on Pacific Rose and 32% sold on Jazz, and so that volume of those three varieties is going to be over two million boxes; it's flowing through at really good prices. We’re not caught up in the depressed commodity trap that Washington is stuck in at the moment with an oversupply of reds, goldens and Jonagolds, so we're looking forward to the import season to supplement year-round programs with these proprietary varieties.

And will you have some good proprietary variety volumes from Chile too?

It’s not just a New Zealand story. We’ll have quite good volumes of Envy and Jazz from San Clemente in Chile.

www.freshfruitportal.com