More than 1,000 companies participated in Fruit Attraction 2022, which was held in Madrid (Spain) from October 3 to 6. One of them was SA Veracruz, an Argentine company located in Tucumán.

arolina Seleme, commercial director of the entity told Portal Frutícola, that they have 1,000 hectares of lemon production, but that part of them are converting them into organic, both for fresh and industrial. The above started last year for industrial fruit and in 2023 they will start for fresh lemons, which would allow the first exports of organic lemons to Europe in 2024.

“We want to increase the production of fruit without post-harvest treatment, we think organic is the future as people are looking for healthier products. Lemon is not only consumed in juice, but also the peel for everything that is pastry, so it is important to give the new generations products that are healthy,” says Seleme.

A challenging campaign

With 45,000 hectares of lemons, Argentina is one of the main producers of this fruit in the world. The 2022 season ended just last month and had several challenges such as the logistic crisis and the increased maritime tariffs.

Carolina Seleme explains that “it was a campaign that developed normally in terms of harvest, quality and shipments, despite the logistical difficulties we had. In terms of results, the varieties in the euro, dollar affect the business and the logistic transports had a lot of increase in freight rates, which affected the profitability of the sector”.

In the case of prices, the returns from Europe were not satisfactory for the industry, however, from SA Veracruz indicate that for this fruit no year is the same as the other and are confident that the supply can be organized so that all countries can have stability.

SA Veracruz exports since 2003 to 45 countries around the world, in which the EU is located as the main destination with 250 thousand tons of lemons, or 50%, followed by the U.S., between 50 thousand and 70 thousand tons and then Asia. One of the changes experienced due to the pandemic was the closure of China, which used to buy 8 thousand tons of Argentine lemons.

As for the volumes of the season that has just ended, according to Seleme there is still no clarity regarding the results, even predicting that they could be reduced, since their shipments are strongly linked to the production of Spanish.

According to the Association of Citriculturists of Northwest Argentina (Acnoa) the export flows of lemons were positive February, May and June, were seen in decline in July (-3.77%) and August (-50.13%), these records of fall in volumes are higher compared to the same months of 2021.

At the peack of the season they reached the U.S. market with 6,800 tons. In week 35 overall shipments are down to 5,026 tons.

Analyzing the lemon season in relation to 2021, the numbers increased only in Europe (135,779 TN) and Russia (47,652 TN), to the United States there was a drop in exports (55,945 TN).

Source: Portal Fruticola