Dappie Smit of South Africa was elected chairman for the Conference, whilst Osman Oz of Turkey and Carlos Huertas Garcia of Argentina were elected deputy chairmen. The Conference considered the world supply and demand position and noted seedless dried grape production from the Sultana/Natural Seedless Raisin varieties had decreased mainly due to unfavourable weather conditions.
The Conference received presentations from guest speakers on marketing and promotion as the producing countries are considering a mutually funded promotion programme.
Louis van Zyl of HORTGRO (the South African Deciduous Fruit Service Company) presented a generic promotion programme for fresh fruit in Europe that has been very successful. Such a programme could potentially be copied by the raisin groups.
John Giles of Promar in the UK made a presentation on ways of prioritising international markets for a possible promotion programme for raisins. He said that market factors are influenced by consumers' age, income and preferences. These factors also had an impact on the growth potential of the market.
Edward Garner, Director of Kantar World Panel gave a retail expert's view on what is happening in the dried fruit sector which included detail information on movements in the dried fruit market. Consumer patterns are constantly shifting which has an impact on the big supermarket groups in Europe and the UK.
The statistical analysis undertaken at the conference showed that the total availability of Natural Seedless Raisins (TSR's) and Sultanas have decreased by eight percent. The analysis also revealed that at the end of the season only 36,239 tons will be carried forward to the next season. The Conference concluded that this ending stock is smaller than expected and some good planning would be needed to supply all demands.
With regard to the supply situation for currants, it was noted that the recent trend of smaller Greek crops had continued and world production was thirty thousand tons compared to twenty-eight thousand tons last year. The other producing countries of currants, the USA, South Africa and Australia reported slightly increased levels of production for 2015.
It was confirmed that the next conference will be in China during October/November 2016.
