Chilean nectarine exporters have benefited this year both from Australia's market development for the fruit in China and the competing country's difficult season. 

A ProChile event for Chilean nectarines

This is the message from Gonzalo Matamala, general manager for the Chinese market at one of Chile's leading stonefruit shippers, Gesex. 

Matamala tells Fresh Fruit Portal even though Chinese inspectors gave the Chilean industry the official green light for entry quite late in the deal, the sector has still managed to export 300,000 boxes to the market.

He says Gesex accounts for roughly 15% of that amount. 

"We [Gesex] sent 15 containers to China. The first boxes arrived the week before last and I think there will be two more weeks for us receiving fruit. I believe this has been a good experience as we were able to place fruit in the market and put the protocol in practice immediately," he says.

He says even though the late approval meant Chilean growers missed out on the lucrative prices in the lead-up to Chinese New Year, the activities of promotion agency ProChile helped Chinese consumers get to know Chilean product.

"And the consumers and importers know that next season they'll be able to count on nectarines from Chile," he says. 

He highlights this has been a "test" year, and even though Gesex hasn't been able to send its highest premium nectarines to China, the market response has been positive and fruit has arrived in excellent condition.

"Another thing that benefited us was that Australia was down a lot this year - they had some problems with condition so there wasn't much volume, and their fruit also didn't accumulate much sugar. This led to our fruit standing out in the market," he says.

The executive doesn't expect the season to garner the best prices late in the campaign given the Chinese domestic nectarine season is running early and will overlap with the South American fruit. 

"The Chinese know and produce nectarines, they have very good varieties and a very good product. We, being counterseasonal, will have the advantage that the path is much clearer as they are already used to consuming this fruit."

"However, our challenge is in explaining the varieties we have, which are very different to the local ones. The good thing is that we have very similar varieties to Australia, which has made advanced efforts in China with the product.

"While the Chinese prefer white-fleshed varieties because they are sweeter than the yellow-fleshed which have a bit more acidity, we in Chile have some premium yellow-fleshed varieties that are very sweet, and we believe we'll have very good results with those in the market."

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