A Victorian stonefruit producer is optimistic his company can gain a strong presence in the Chinese market now that the country has opened up access for Australian nectarines.

Mallee-based Certified Fresh export representative Adrian Cordoma tells www.freshfruitportal.com the closest growers have been able to get to the Chinese mainland to date is Hong Kong, where Certified Fresh does pre-pack programs with major supermarkets.

"We feel with this new protocol that we can access retail outlets and that will mean that our presence for nectarines in China will be greater," he says.

"We feel that our nectarines hit the spot right before Chinese New Year in all our most popular varieties, which is essentially a bonus for us because our products are nice, red, round, high-brix.

"Our unique selling point is that we grow our fruit in the Mallee region, which is known worldwide for its high chill unit and long sun hours during our growing period. We think we get the sweetest fruit in the world...the Chinese chase that flavor."

The group grows stonefruit across 700 acres with Cutri Fresh as the parent company.

"About 50% of it is white-fleshed nectarines and white flesh peaches, and then you’ve got yellow-fleshed peach, yellow-flesh nectarines, and we’ve also got plums, pluots, and we also grow apricots.

"Of all of those we’ve negotiated [access] for the nectarines.

"If we got plums and peaches it would be incredibly helpful, and our plums would take the China market by storm, because we’re actually in the process of getting rights for a new plum series – we would be the only ones in Australia who can grow it."

He says the new varieties come from the Israeli breeder Ben Dor Fruits & Nurseries.

"It's a high-antioxidant watermelon plum and we can also call it a plumagranate...in my opinion, it's one of the most unique pieces of fruit I've ever seen.

"You might have heard of the Queen Garnet plum that’s being grown in Australia. They’ve got the same color flesh – we’ll have the exclusive rights in Australia to grow these varieties and market them.

"There's also a red-fleshed nectarine. We've planted the plums but we haven’t planted the nectarines yet."

In terms of the company's other exports, after Hong Kong the leading destination is the Middle East - including the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia - followed by Singapore and Malaysia.

"There’s also a very niche market into Europe right before Christmas time for our most premium markets which are Paris and Milan - that's for apricots and big white peaches," Cordoma says.

In Australia the group also sells to retailers Woolworths, Coles, Costco, Aldi and a lot of the wholesale markets, with a presence in most states.

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