French fruit exporter Blue Whale  is unsure what a range of influential factors will mean for the upcoming apple season, including low stocks in certain parts of the world and disappointing European crop prospects.

Blue Whale commercial manager Marc Peyres told www.freshfruitportal.com he believed this season would be radically different to the last.

"Things seem to be uncertain for apples this season," Peyres said.

"There are various positive factors for us such as the expected fruit quality, a few markets where we're seeing strong demand, and a low Southern Hemisphere stock.

"But there are some other things which could pose issues like the residual stocks of Golden Delicious in Europe and our crop outlook in terms of volume for Europe and the U.S.

"I think we could have almost an opposite season to the previous one - namely a difficult start but then much better markets after Christmas."

Peyres said he expected everything would be much cleared in late August.

Blue Whale is France's largest apple exporter and currently serves a total of 70 foreign markets.

In terms of kiwifruit, Peyres was much more confident about the upcoming season.

"The market is well-balanced between supply and demand and so it should be similar to last year, which was very good for our producers," he said.

Sights set on Asia

Blue Whale recently merged with fellow French apple cooperative BVL, and as a result expects its shipments to Asia to rise this year.

"The arrival of the BVL cooperative is going to give us extra strength - we will complement each other geographically both in terms of production and packing. I can only see the benefits to the partnership," Peyres said.

"The merger will allow us to monitor sales all season and extend the season with additional range of products to our traditional markets."

Peyres added that this year Blue Whale's production should meet the demand of its sales growth - something it was not able to do last season.

"Last year we suffered a small harvest and so we weren't able to develop our sales in certain Asian countries like Indonesia, China, Taiwan and India," he said.

"This year should be different."

Peyres went on to say the company had been investing in its Blue Whale brand for a while now, and last year opened up a regional office in Bangkok to develop its presence there and better serve clients.

"The new office also allows us to not only consolidate our sales year after year, but to actually see them develop first hand," he said.

"We now have a solid network of customers in the region which we're proud of, but we don't forget that Asia is still a relatively small market of less than 25,000 [metric] tons annually"

Peyres pointed out that the European industry's shipments to the African country of Libya amounted to more than the whole of Asia combined.

"The number is small due to various reasons - limited varieties, the transit time for shipments to arrive from Europe, and the cost, to name a few," he said.

"That is why we call it a niche market, and it will remain as such until we can increase our competitiveness, whether that be from obtaining a better tariff, developing varieties more suited to the Asia market, or finding a way to shorten travel times over sea.

"We cannot hope for a spectacular sales growth from Europe to Asia under the current conditions."

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