WASHINGTON: According to some US importers, such as Andy Economou, the COO of TastyFruitti International, Chilean pear imports were doing very well. Economou said they already had good volumes of fruit and that, even though the fruit’s quality and conditions were fantastic, the market was a little slow because of the high production and presence of pears from the northwestern part of the United States. “Supermarkets won’t change to imports for two or three weeks,” Economou said, adding: “There are still no market for imports.”
The northwestern offer is important, even TastyFruitti will continue to supply its customers with it. “In mid-January there were three times more apples available from the Northwest than last year. That is the reason for the delay this year. There is a lot of fruit in the country. Things are going to move slowly at this point, but domestic sales will start to decline in two weeks giving way to the imported product.” According to the Pear Bureau Northwest, the region produced a total of 18.4 million 44-pound standard boxes of conventional and organic pears for the fresh market in the 2016-2017 season. Currently, “there still are Bartlett, Comice, Anjous, and Bosc pears, which are grown in the US, available for the market. Some people also have a limited supply of Seckels and Forelles available,” he said.
Economou said that another factor which could also influence the movement of Chilean pear sales in these early months was the beginning of Argentina’s pear export season. “It seems that Argentina will start exporting Bartletts around February 20 this year,” Economou said. However, he added, Chilean pear exports wouldn’t be too affected by Argentinean exports because “as soon as we get out of domestic production, consumption of imported product will be very strong for Chilean pears because of their good quality.” According to data from Chile’s Fruit Exporters Association AG (ASOEX) Chile exported a total of 800,430 tons of pears to the US market during the 2015-2016 season.
