Early pomegranates season gives Israel an edge in market

Despite high competition for the pomegranate market in Europe, Israel still has the upper hand in r…

Despite high competition for the pomegranate market in Europe, Israel still has the upper hand in reaching the market earlier than other producers as its season comes three weeks earlier.

The season for pomegranates started two weeks ago in Israel and the demand has been good but slowly Egypt and Turkey will follow along.

According to Oron Ziv of Befresh Europe, an exporter of fresh fruits and vegetables, harvesting of aril variety started two weeks ago and will end in September while the season for the Wonderful variety will begin in October.

Ziv says the Wonderful variety is preserved in special cooling rooms which means its marketed throughout winter so the season will go up to March next year.

“A few years ago Israel was the major producer of pomegranates but now we have other countries such as Egypt, Turkey, India, Morocco and Iran. It is really hard to compete with Turkish prices especially,” explains Ziv.

Befresh sources the fruit from growers across the country.

Mango
The mango season also begun a while ago in Israel but the demand is yet to pick up as many buyers are on holiday but also the availability of mangoes from Senegal and Brazil has also slowed things down.

“We offloaded the first kit this week and we expect to have a better market for the late variety by mid-August. The mango season is normally affected as the main season comes early August when people are on holiday but the demand picks up again mid-August,” says Ziv.

Citrus
Befresh is however looking forward to the citrus season which is expected to start early and from Ziv’s point of view, the crop is promising. “The last week of August we expect to start with pomelo and grapefruit,” he adds.

For the grapefruit though, the production might be lower than last year as many growers cut down their plantation and shifted to avocados which is viewed as the new ‘money maker’.

“Every number I say is just a guess but from my experience the decrease in produce for the grapefruit variety might be between 15 to 20 per cent. This year however, we don’t expect more growers to cut their plants as the whole atmosphere around the grapefruit has changed as there are new markets like China and Canada,” explains Ziv.