Chilean easy peeler shippers may be heavily focused on the U.S. market for now, but a representative of BioGold Sudamerica believes there are opportunities to greatly expand Nadorcott exports to Europe. 

"Chilean exporters are already starting to look for new markets," the entity's product manager Beatriz Araya told Fresh Fruit Portal.

She added mandarin plantings had been increasing and exports should continue to rise.

Last season, the U.S. received more than 90% of Chilean mandarin exports, with Europe only receiving around 5%, she explained.

This season exports of late mandarin varieties are expected to hit 65,000 metric tons (MT), which would mark a 25% year-on-year rise. The figure is expected to rise to 100,000MT by 2020.

Total mandarin and clementine plantings are estimated to be around 6,000 hectares, of which 4,000 hectares correspond to late varieties, with Nadorcott variety - or W. Murcott - representing 90% of the late harvest.

As the Nadorcott is protected in Europe, exports to this market must first be accredited by South Africa-based Citrogold, represented in Chile by Biogold Sudamerica.

Araya explained the accreditation process was fairly simple. Since the program begun in 2011, more than 400 containers of Nadorcott have been approved for export to Europe.

"In the 2016 season 103 containers were accredited from a program that had been expected to be much larger, but due to the early ripening of the fruit the exporters decided to cancel some programs," she said.

The South American country has a quota of 5,000MT for the market, of which only 44% was used last year. This season she expects the full amount to be achieved.

"If you look at the seasonality of shipments from the Southern Hemisphere, you realize that Chile and Australia arrive toward the end of the season, when volumes from Peru and South Africa - the main suppliers of the variety - strongly decline," she said.

"This is why we think that Chile has room to grow."

Sofía Jeanneret, a commercial representative from exporter GLS, said the company has been exporting Nadorcotts to Europe for the last two years.

"We are still shipping very limited volumes to importers both on the European continent and England," she said.

GLS is currently shipping around 402MT to Europe - almost 18% of the total volume exported from Chile to market.

"The U.S. is still a very good market for mandarins, with attractive prices, but we also know that you have to open new markets because local production is still rising, as well as supply from other countries," she said.

"Continental Europe still isn't a very attractive market, but we think that in the future it will be. England, on the other hand, has been more attractive in terms of prices."

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