Serbian blueberry growers lament a bad season of late spring rain and cooler summer weather that led to quality issues for the open field production during the 2023 harvest. Sladjana Vuković, CEO of the Serbian exporting company Srbovoće: “Generally, this has been a bad year for Serbian blueberry growers.”
She says that, while volumes for her company were not lower, the rains caused some 15% damage to blueberry harvests in Serbia. “The volumes of our blueberries were very good, we did not have less than expected. All our raspberries and blackberries, produced in covered space were sold locally, which tells us there is space to increase that production, which we plan to do next year. Early rains affected a lot of our blueberry open field production, we did not have lower volumes, but claims were about 20%.”
According FreshPlaza, This led to much less exports of blueberries to the European market, but they also did not see a price increase due to the shortage. “We did not feel a price increase, we are under constant price pressure, while costs and standard demands are increasing, which does not make sense. We exported about 200 tons of blueberries to the European market, much less than we planned due to poor quality,” says Vuković.
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Serbia’s blueberry and other berry harvest also started later due to the late spring rains. This also made picking of raspberries harder. While the blueberry harvesting has ended Vuković says they are still harvesting raspberries. “Our berry harvest has ended for the most part for this year. We are still picking some raspberries from our covered production. The plan is to continue until mid-December or until the weather permits.”
Srbovoće as exporting company has a combined 120 hectares from supplying producers. Some have newly planted while others have plantings that are somewhere in-between, with not everything that is in full production yet. Their suppliers’ farms are situated around the Belgrade area and central Serbia with a smaller amount in the west and south east of the country.
Vuković concludes by saying despite this season’s disappointment they still have expansion plans for next year. “The good news is that we plan to produce more raspberries and blackberries for fresh consumption next year. We see more potential in it. In my opinion, climate change is becoming more and more challenging, together with a more demanding market that pushes prices down.”
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