Following yet another unusual spring with too much rain and not enough sun, the European fruit processing industry has strong concerns about its raw material supply. Climate change is here, is real, and its impact appears to make "normal years" the exception.

Several fruit crops have been affected more severely by the poor weather conditions during a wet and cool spring: apples in some growing regions, and especially sour cherries, rhubarb, plums, red currants and black currants are particularly badly impacted. In addition to volume concerns for some crops, there are also quality concerns like lack of size of the fruit, that turns into higher cost for processing and significant lower yields.

For apples, the loss of blossoms in the spring has resulted in fewer fruit on the trees. For other key crops such as peaches - unless summer storms are suffered - a normal year is expected.

Whilst final figures still need to be confirmed, availability and quality concerns for some fruit for processing can be felt. Furthermore, against the background of continued high production costs at both grower level and factory level, retail prices do not reflect the real value of jams, spreads, canned fruit and compotes Profel notes in the statement.

Source - https://www.freshplaza.com