A Bumper Season for Cherry Exports

Article by: Hari Yellina

The Turkish cherry harvesting season has only a few more weeks left. One exporter claims that despite decreasing demand in Europe, they have managed to outperform their rivals in California. Due to the problems in Europe, Russia was also a successful market for Turkish cherries. The cherry season is almost ended, but Coskun Eren, marketing manager for Turkish fresh fruit exporter Eren, says that the season was generally satisfying: “I must admit that the cherry season was generally good. While the central and eastern harvest regions had lesser volumes than previous year’s harvest, the western harvest regions saw good levels. This was mostly brought on by the bitterly cold winter conditions. Because of the larger cherry size as a result of the lesser volume, the product was extremely marketable. Prices were reasonable, quality was comparable, but merchants needed to exercise caution because several locations are harvesting at once. Harvest will continue for another two to three weeks, following which the season will come to a conclusion.”

Eren claims that the Turkish cherries had an edge over their Californian rivals: “This year, Eren did better than the prior years. Californian cherries are our main rival, particularly in the air freight market, and since they are a little later in the growing season than we are, our export opportunities are greater. As a result, we exported at least twice as much air freight as we did the year before. This year, we raised the volume of truck-based orders while also strengthening our shipments to Russia despite the ongoing concerns between Russia and the EU. Although this season’s EU exports were below average, generally our season was successful. North America, the Far East, Belarus, and Russia were our top export markets.

The urge to harvest the cherries from several places at once increased since some harvest areas concluded very rapidly, according to Eren. The fact that the product harvesting areas wrapped up a little too quickly this year was our biggest obstacle. As the season passes, exporters roam among Turkey’s more than 10 major zones where cherries can be harvested for export. In order to get the most value and quality, you would typically only be in two or three zones at once. However, this year, some zones ran out of produce extremely rapidly, so in order to satisfy demand, we had to harvest from four or five zones simultaneously.

Turkish cherries’ prices were actually lower than they could have been due to the lesser demand in the European Union: “Prices were high at the beginning of the season, as usual. If you contrast the costs with how the season typically progresses, they weren’t actually that exorbitant. We were able to start early and surpass California in many ways because of this. The season’s average price was reasonable, and I believe that this year’s weaker local and EU demand has pushed the price down. “We will continue distributing the products for a few more weeks before the season is through, doing our utmost to meet demand. We are about to observe a religious holiday, therefore we’ll have a short break and then continue.”