Export of strawberries in Italy and Egypt

In Italy, the trend is planning the crop to prolong the season, arranging different ripening times throughout the Country thanks to the different climate: from the South (where the season starts in February) to the North and recently even on mountains. Candonga too is growing a lot, most of all in the South of the Country.
Italian exports of strawberries now approximately equal the volumes destined abroad by France, which is the fifth European producer. Better results in the Southern shore for Morocco and Egypt, whose exports totalled in both cases volumes around 21,000 tons in the 2006/2007 campaign.
However Egypt’s position is improving as Morocco is progressively losing its exporting capacity to the European Union (50% of which is destined to France), dropping from the about 27,000 tons in 2004/2005. This thanks to good organoleptic quality of Egyptian strawberries, an industry that has improved a lot and a very early season, as two main Egyptian exporting companies (Magrabi Agriculture and Pico Modern Agriculture Co. confirmed to Green Med Journal). Egypt can actually supply strawberries as early as during Christmas time, getting very good prices. It is not only competitive prices, therefore, that favour the success of Egypt’s strawberries abroad.