Plenty of oranges available in Chch

Press, 27 January 1978, Page 2

Plenty of oranges available in Chch

The Australian orange season has almost finished, the balance of fruit held in

stock being sold at the Christchurch markets yesterday.

This was the Valencia variety and although there were some signs of waste, it was only nominal. The price realised from $6 to $8 for a 22kg case. However, there will be no shortage of oranges. A shipment of Californian Sunkist oranges is due at Lyttelton next week and should be available to retailers late next week.

This shipment will also include a consignment of Californian grapefruit and Ecuadorean bananas. The first release of Gravenstein apples was available yesterday. Until this week, the only apples available have been the very early varieties, Scarlet Pimpernel and Irish Peach. The cherry season has almost finished, there being only two small consignments available at one Christchurch market yesterday. These fetched $6.90 to $8.20 a carton.

The quantity of apricots has increased, with most coming from Central Otago. These sold at $3 to $7 a half-case.

Nectarine prices have dropped slightly from last week, as has the price of peaches. Nectarines are now arriving from all growing areas and yesterday they were $4 to $6 a half-case and $2.50 to $5.20 a tray.

Peaches were $3 to $4.60 a half-case and $1.20 to $3.30 a tray. There are a number of varieties of plums available and the prices remain firm. Dessert plums fetched $6 to $ll a half-case and culinary (cooking) plums were $2 to

$4.50 for the same quantity. Trays of plums were $1.20 to $2.50.

A small supply of new season water melon arrived from the North Island and was sold at auction yesterday. There was a strong demand for this because there has been none on the markets for the last few weeks because of a poor crop in Tonga. Yesterday’s water melon fetched about $1.20 a kilogram.

There were also some Tahitian mangoes and Rarotongan paw paw available. The

paw paw was $7.60 to $9 for a carton of about eight and the mangoes were $8 to $12.60 a carton. The latter are very mature. Lettuce and marrows were very cheap and both are still in good supply. Lettuce was 80c to $1.60 a case and marrows were 50c to $1 a bag. Berries are plentiful and prices are comparable with last week. Strawberries fetched 70c to $1.07 a punnet and boysenberries were 65c to 85c a punnet. Blackcurrants and redcurrants were about $l.lO a kilogram. Supplies of the most popular varieties Of stone fruit for bottling and jam-making are becoming more plentiful. There is a good demand for the jam apricots, Roxburgh Red and also for Red Haven bottling peaches.

Mushrooms and tomatoes are both in good supply and prices have dropped slightly. Button mushrooms were $3 to $5 a tray, while open mushrooms fetched $4 to $4.40 a tray. Local tomatoes were $2 to $3.50 for a skg carton and Nelson tomatoes fetched $3 to $4 for a 9kg carton.

New Zealand grapefruit is plentiful with prices reaching $lO a case. Grapes have risen in price with skg cases

Cook Island pineapples are available and supplies of pineapples have been bolstered with the arrival of some Australian pineapples yesterday. Both New Zealand and Californian lemons are in plentiful supply.