The Chilean developers of Pink Globe table grapes expect to double production next year, following a solid export campaign to China that yielded US$4 more per box on minimum price guarantees compared to traditional Red Globes.

Chimenti Globe executive director Alfredo Chimenti Silva told www.freshfruitportal.com the Chinese market remained profitable despite the complex 2015 situation of oversupply and import investigations.

Discovered by his father Alfredo Chimenti Agri as a natural mutation of the Red Globe variety, the cultivar has made great strides in recent years with its unique pink coloring, white flesh, high sweetness and easily palatable tiny pits that lack the bitterness often tasted in seeded grapes.

And for people looking for an alternative eating experience, the paper-thin skin can also be easily peeled to reveal an almost litchi-like texture.

With copyrights on the names 'Pink Globe' and 'Chimenti Globe', the team is still considering potential names to test market preferences.

"The main qualities why people like it, particularly in Asia, are the color, the sugar level of 20° brix on average, the white flesh and the shelf life, which is much better than for Red Globe," said Chimenti senior.

"You can see its potential, and in terms of production there is no problem - you can take a very appreciable amount of boxes, around 3,500 boxes per hectare."

The 8-hectare Chimenti property has produced some 20,000 boxes of Pink Globes this year, but through licensed growers there are around 40 hectares of plantations around Chile. There is interest in the variety in the northern Chilean areas around Copiapó and Vicuña, but issues of drought and this year's floods have postponed planting in the region.

In addition to continued licensing deals, the company aims to secure a strategic alliance to produce another 200 hectares of its own Pink Globes in Chile, which in full production would yield 600,000 boxes annually.

"With good results we could carry out the same exercise in Peru, where there are 80 hectares of Pink Globes planted," said Chimenti junior, adding the fruit was grown on farms in the neighboring country from Ica to Piura.

"The variety takes less than 14 months [in Peru]. It was planted in November and December of 2013, and we had the first production in December of 2014.

"In Peru we use the same rootstocks as here, but obviously you have to prove which are the most appropriate according to the climate, the soil, the size it gives you and the color it gives you. It will definitely take us two seasons to evaluate the results and find the most appropriate technical management."

Chimenti senior said production could be extended by using the right combination of rootstocks on vineyards, starting with Peru in late October and then Chile in February with harvests that could last until May.

"Then in June you have California," he said, referring to the long-term plan which is still a way off from fruition.

Global plan and a grower-focused licensing scheme

Chimenti Globe aims to have year-round production of the variety eventually, and also has patents for the cultivar in United States, Mexico, the EU, South Africa, Namibia, Egypt, Morocco, China, Peru and Ecuador.

"If you don't patent a variety in a country it's very likely that it will appear there anyway," said Chimenti senior.

"So it's better to have it there and give someone the license so that they look after it well."

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Aside from Peru, the most advanced overseas production development is in South Africa, where the variety has now passed through quarantine. The Chimenti family hopes there will be samples of the fruit grown from some of the patent countries within two years.

"They're covered with a royalty per plant and a royalty per productive hectare. We're always thinking about the grower so that if there's a weather event there won't be a violent payment charge to pay every hectare that year.

"If there's a freeze you have to take into account the varying production."

Chimenti junior said exactly how much surface area would be planted in the near future was uncertain, but there was a clear goal for the coming years.

"It'll depend on results and on our business model; whether we offer it to all growers or whether we do it a little bit more conservatively.

"In terms of planted area the estimate is that at the start with different important people from the industry, domestically and internationally, we'll have some 3,500-4,000 hectares globally. And obviously this generates a very attractive business."

Chimenti senior said the target market was "undoubtedly China" as well as other key Asian destinations like Vietnam and Thailand, but the opportunities don't stop there.

"We sent a sample to Russia this year as we believe it's an important market. There are windows that can still be attractive for us and we believe the economic problems will be solved; that's what we're betting on.

"Russia has great potential with an enormous population, and we're also looking at other countries that were behind the Iron Curtain like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland. They are attractive for us."

"Today, Europe is bringing in big volumes of Red Globe which it didn't do five years ago, but commercially it's not a big business. With the exchange rate they’ve got now in Europe you can't send anything there – the U.S. is the great market for Chile, but you have to plant with new protected table grape varieties."

He added that Turkey and India were also on the radar.

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