After surpassing table grapes to become Chile's leading fruit export crop in volume last year, recent figures show apple shipments were down by more than a fifth in the first half of 2015.

Chile's Office of Agricultural Research and Policy (ODEPA) has revealed shipments fell 21.7% year-on-year between January and June, reaching 411,000 metric tons (MT).

Grower group Fedefruta attributes the decline to November frosts, excessive heat in the summer and a lack of coloring, as well as the pulling out of orchards that were not yielding enough production to be competitive in overseas markets.

Fedefruta director and Curicó-based grower Antonio Walker, said producers were starting to take out old trees.

"Apple prices have been adjusted a lot in the international market and you have to achieve production with no limits to quality if you're going to be in the black at the end of the season," says Walker, who is also the president of Maule fruit growers' union Fruseptima.

"We have to grower very good fruit, convert to attractive varieties that yield high volumes, and be very efficient to stay in the apple business," he says.

New business strategies

Walker emphasized the impacts of a new dynamic that "didn't occur before", with a very significant amount of production in the Northern Hemisphere which competes with Chilean fruit.

He attributes the change to improvements in storage techniques, allowing European apples to last longer and be sold during the same time as the Chilean season.

He says this is why Chilean growers have been redesigning their sales strategies and increasing their commercial programs in the Middle East, where for the first time Chile has sent more apples than to Europe, as well as Latin America and Asia.

"This [trend] has come to stay, and we have to conquer other markets apart from Europe and the United States."

He said Chile could take a leaf out of New Zealand's book, highlighting how the country had made progress in selling fruit to nearby Polynesian countries.

"Being so far from Europe, our transit cost ascends to six or seven dollars per box of apples, so we have to open up the neighborhood in Latin America and break down the tariff barriers that we have in our own region.

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