On the other hand, with the Chinese New Year falling so early during the current season (January 22, 2023) and considering a production estimate of 20% higher than the previous season, a scenario of great challenges was generated.
Fortunately, the industry prepared itself to face these two scenarios and today we can say that, as the season comes to an end, we have achieved our goal by working with each link in the chain together and in a coordinated manner.
In terms of logistics, although sea freight rates remained high, we had no problems with container availability and more chamber vessels were available. At the destination, the capacity to clear customs and deliver the fruit was faster and more efficient, which was helped by the fact that the cherries were sent to various ports in China, rather than being concentrated in the traditional ports of Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Below we summarize some observations of what happened during the season and how the varieties behaved:
The season started very early, at the end of October, when it is difficult to predict the variety and geographical origin, since production under plastic covers brought forward, in some areas, varieties such as Santina.
Due to the early Chinese New Year, efforts were made to advance the harvest dates, and although the cold spring weather caused fewer days of temperature to accumulate, the harvests were still advanced, especially for late fruit.
The rainfall at the beginning of November, in some localities, affected the Royal Dawn and Santina varieties, which was later evident in post-harvest with a higher incidence of rot.
At harvest we saw that Royal Dawn was firm with good soluble solids (°Brix) and very little cracking.
The Santina variety, on the other hand, was less firm, with low or irregular °Brix.
At the start of the Lapins harvest (which resulted in large volumes of fruit and a large number of people to carry out this work), this was affected by a large number of bruises at the receptions (Figure 1). The fruit was firm and had a good percentage of sugar, but what may have played against us is the early harvest, with which we observed redder fruit at the reception in the plants.
A problem that occurs every season and becomes more critical is the large amount of leaves in the harvest totes, which strongly harms the processes of the Santina variety, because this variety floats, so the cleaning systems in the processing lines are stopped, and consequently, a large part of the leaves pass through the line; but this season, even though the cleaning systems were working in the rest of the varieties, emptying ponds and processing lines with leaves were observed (Figure 2).
It was also surprising to receive a variety like Kordia and Regina in the first week of December. These were harvested closer to mahogany red in colour, with Regina showing very good quality. In the case of Kordia, the lighter colours (not usual for it) caused the sugar levels to drop at some point.
Considering the concentration of volumes in a given period, the industry also prepared itself and in this way we did not see large amounts of fruit waiting for processing. We were able to observe waiting times of three or four days for processing, and longer times were only seen in those places where the amount of fruit that was forecast to be received per day was doubled.
A decrease in harvests was also observed before December 23, leaving a much lower volume for the process after this date. The above was done in advance in shipments in order to arrive in China before January 22. Thus, we observed that by week 51, 84% of the volume had been shipped, while the figure for the previous season was 52% (Figure 3).
As the season progressed, the first sea containers began to arrive in China on December 9. Until then, a large quantity of fruit shipped by air with different varieties was the way to supply that market. Comments from the first receptions of containers that arrived indicate the presence of higher levels of pitting in the Royal Dawn and Santina varieties (Figure 4).
Upon arrival of Lapins, the main observation was the excessively red color and additional damage from pitting and bruises were observed, but not so different from what we are used to seeing in this variety.
At the time of writing this article, we were on the verge of the Chinese New Year, with a good percentage of Lapins and Regina arriving, the latter arriving in very good condition.
Sales prices have been normal and good for sizes over 2J, as always, with the small weight packages being differentiated from the five-kilo boxes, where the industry usually places the fruit that shows weakness in any of the quality parameters.
