N.Z. berryfruit season ‘worst’ in California

Press, 2 March 1981, Page 4

N.Z. berryfruit season ‘worst’ in California

By

JOHN HUTCHISON

. The market for New Zealand berry and stone fruit, now winding down with the approach of spring in California, "is probably the" Worst ever,” in the opinion of experienced dealers in San Francisco,; and etos Angeles.' ■' : ■ ■" Very high freight and handling costs are blamed for putting the fruit out of reach, .but destructive competition among New Zealand producers and shippers, and fierce pressure from loWer-priced Chilean growers, are also called factors in the market. There has been some Other , problems: over-ripe .ehipcnant3,-. handhng dam- : age, instances of unacceplsle ; pesticide* residue, and. in- WlO iJWtaitoe of strawberries,, an unexpected overlap t with. the. Cah-.fdrnia-was •later' than

One San Francisco dealer called the New Zealand import fruit picture “disastrous,” some fruit selling at a loss. , : “It’s been a tough year,” said another. Chilean fruit had been available for less ithan New Zealand’s. Then he echoed a Los Angeles distributor in his comments on th© internecine competition ■ in the New Zealand industry’. "There are too many iNew Zealand shippers, iwith too many labels, trying to sell here,” he said, “Everyone wants to get into, the'act I-tiig a crazy, :sittiatioii. Tve never seen so many people sending iNew Zealand fruit here.” . The , result . was that wholesalers . drove"Hardt ..among sellers ■vying for- the market, i even pitting. San Francisco and ,Los Angeles offices of the -same distributing firm against each other. "Some off-season fruit

is so expensive by the time air Wight and other costs are piled upon the price .that only a posh hotel or restaurant can sell it — .to a few customers who can ignore the extravagance,” he said “Who . else can pay for strawberries that wholesale at $3 a punnet?” Blackberries and blueberries from New Zealand have been bringing $lB to $22 a nine-punnet tray; nectarines and plums, $l6 a tray containing 32 to 35 pieces.A Los Angeles importer has received a few trays of pepinp from New Zealand. Asked to describe this fruit, unknown in the United States, he admitted ignorance: . “You’ve got me? It’s at bit like melon, and they grow it in hothouses. We sold it — six or eight pepinos in a flat, fof $2O wholesale.”- '. ■