With only days until the Chinese New Year this Friday, of which Chile is the main supplier of cherries, the Cherry Committee of the Association of Chilean Fruit Exporters (ASOEX) has reported seeing a recovery in the Chinese cherry market.

The development comes following challenging market conditions over recent weeks after an alleged and unconfirmed positive detection of traces of Covid-19 on packaging of imported cherries. The Chinese Government denied there had been a positive detection and said that cherries were safe to continue consuming.

Cristian Tagle, President of the Committee, told FreshFruitPortal.com: "It is going to be an unusual season for various reasons as volume has grown more than 50 percent with respect to last year, and the market performance has also been unprecedented".

"The consumption of cherries in China has been impacted by unconfirmed rumors on social media. As an industry, we have worked on a plan to position our cherries in the market and have implemented a plan to mitigate the negative effect that took place overnight," Tagle said.

Regarding remedy actions taken, the governments of Chile and China have joined together to boost cherry sales in the Asian country.

Tagle said: "The effect of the various messages on social media and the sales promotions, both in physical stores and online, have managed to control the rumors and improve sentiment towards cherries on social media. However, without a doubt, the outlook is uncertain for the remainder of the season. We see signs of recovery, although insufficient to produce product movement in the few days until the Chinese New Year (February 12)."

But he added that "perhaps the fact that fewer people will be traveling for the new year in China, it could represent a possible additional opportunity to consume cherries, which we want to take advantage of".

Exports of cherries grow in 2020-21

According to data from ASOEX, in the 2020-21 season through the start of February, fresh fruit exports increased 8.9 percent year-on-year.

Cherries led with 41.3 percent of the total volume shipped, followed by blueberries with 11.6 percent, apples were 8.3 percent, avocados at 8.2 percent and table grapes at 8 percent.

Chile exported 843,671 metric tons (MT) of fresh fruits to different markets, of which the Far East received 46.7 percent of total exported to date.

The U.S. followed with 24.1 percent, then Latin America with 14.1 percent, Europe with 13.5 percent, Canada with 1.3 percent and the Middle East with 0.2 percent.

Of the Far East, the main receiving countries are China (90.9%), South Korea (3.6%) and Taiwan (2.1%).

Regarding Latin America, Colombia (20.4%), Brazil (19.5%) and Ecuador (13.3%) stand out.

The main destinations in Europe are the Netherlands at 55.2%, followed by England at 23.8% and Spain with 7.8% of the total.