An Indian-German partnership that connects smallholder grape farmers with Europe has seriously gathered pace this year.

As German fruit supplier Don Limón heads towards the latter stages of its grape export campaign, tonnage has significantly increased compared with the first harvests last year.

"This year we have expanded our volume up to 32 containers as compared to the last year of four containers," said Don Limón import-export manager, Debjit Ghosh.

"That is approximately 384 metric tons (MT) in total, so it’s significantly larger than the first time around.

"Our development project together with German government helped us to meet the European requirements with quality as well as residues."

In the past, many Indian producers avoided the EU because of stringent food safety procedures, the associated high costs and a general perception that it was too risky to supply member states.

However, the Don Limón partnership with Indian farmers is looking to change that by improving growing conditions and best practices employed by the farmers through continuing educational programs.

Over recent weeks shipments have been dispatched to Scandinavia, Poland, Germany, Spain and Ukraine with more to come between now and the end of the month and possibly well into May.

"Indian grapes are planning to stay until the end of April and with the prediction to supply until the beginning of May.

"But rainfall in the production area can restrict the grapes' arrival."

While this campaign has seen a big boost for Indian grapes going to EU markets, Ghosh predicts next year’s forecasts to be even better as plans are afoot to increase the area under production from 15 hectares to 25 hectares.

Meanwhile, another Indian grape exporter, Mahagrapes, is approaching the tail end of its campaign which technical manager Sachin Korde describes as "bigger and better" than previous years.

"This has been an extremely good crop and we are still seeing plenty of grapes going on the water to the European market as demand remains strong," he said.

"In terms of availability, this season is slightly longer than in the past because we’ve had solid volumes and have been able to supply our European customers with the quantities they are looking for.

"One of the reasons for this was the good growing season where we experienced some fine weather which attributed to the higher than average yields."

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