The Greek season for kiwis began to perform much better than it did after the slow beginning in 2022. Antonis Ioannidis Sales Manager of Zeus Kiwi: “There has actually been a slow beginning of our kiwi season. This is due to the aggressiveness of pricing, both by the Greek exporters of kiwi, and the Italians. They wanted to clear of their stocks as quickly as they could to reduce cost of storage. The result was an oversupply in the marketplace, while there was a relatively small demand in both European as well as the overseas market. The problem lasted to the close of 2022, and some time at the beginning of 2023.”

Thankfully, the situation was not the case for the whole season. The supply started declining after a time, Ioannidis explains. “By the month of February 2023, there was a noticeable improvement on the market. A large supply from exporters, who were eager to ship the to the market as fast as possible would have run out. Then it was a very strange year, with more kiwis of smaller sizes. The improvements did begin to emerge at this point. Now we’re nearing the close of our kiwi campaign. The final volumes are scheduled to be delivered in the last week in May. The shipments to overseas stopped the week of 18.”

In addition to exporting their products to the traditionally-based markets Ioannidis noticed some significant opportunities to expand his business in South Africa and India this year. In his statement: “For Zeus, the United Kingdom is always one of the major markets because we provide a large majority of the stores there. We’ve also witnessed an increase of this year’s South African market this year. This year, the United States and Canada have always been an integral part of our plan to ship Kiwis. This being said, and not just for Zeus but also for Greece in general and the Indian market also has proven to be an ideal alternative for exporters of kiwis this year.”

Greek produce is being shipped to Italy right from the farm which is then advertised as Italian produced goods. It’s the same with kiwis, and rules must be put in the right way to prevent this, Ioannidis thinks. “The reality that Greek is being offered as Italian is a long-standing problem, but it’s now an issue in the last 3 or 4 years. Italy ranks to be among the top three Greek exporters over the past couple of years. When it comes to European trade in kiwis, we don’t know how many of these are Greek the kiwis. This has an effect on Greek exports of kiwis as well as the whole kiwi industry. The industry has been working to establish a central agency which defends Greek Kiwis. There’s a lot of discussion on how about the need to enforce stringent regulations regarding exporting kiwis from Italy.”

In the past few years, Zeus started planting Yellow fleshed varieties of kiwi along the strategic partner of our company. They are now to be ready for the world stage: “Our yellow fleshed kiwi project is growing. There are brand new plantations and two brand new patent varieties. The fruit has received a great reception by our most important customers, and we’re very optimistic! The fruit will be part of our strategy for marketing, and the only option for Greek yellow-colored kiwi to move forward is upwards!” Ioannidis concludes.

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Antonis Ioannidis

Zeus Kiwi S.A.

Telephone: +30 2351 053559

Email: antonis@zeuskiwi.gr

www.zeuskiwi.gr