AMS Exotics – Thriving Exports

2005 was a prosperous year for exports. We had unseasonably busy winter months in Jan and Feb with green asparagus and iceberg lettuce to Switzerland and Holland. A bout of frost in Spain turned into an opportunity for American product. The shortage of lettuce was significant enough for importers to pay the high air freight costs to keep retail chain and foodservice operators happy. God forbid that a McDonald’s Big Mac might go without that familiar wedge of iceberg…

We saw lots of growth in out organic exports to the UK. The month of April and the first few weeks of May we shipped organic peaches and nectarines from Mexico and California that went to tesco and sainsbury’s. Out relationship on cherries with BC Tree Fruit, Canada opened the door to some organic apple business for sainsbury’s.

Our table grape season was out of Mexico in the spring was rewarding albeit challenging. For the first time in 30 years, there were rainstorms in the Sonora desert that threatened our entire UK program. Our plans to pack ocean freight were temporarily thrown out of the window as we could not take the risk of putting rained on fruit for 20 days on the water. As a result we salvaged the program by negotiating competitive air freight and tapping into a new grower and later production area, unaffected by rain, to recover our ocean freight program. In the end we still managed a decent program of 100k+ cartons packed for Tesco.

Another new beginning for us was our interaction with the South American supply base for both export and import. We shipped cherries from Argentina and Chile to the UK and France and mangos from Brazil to AMS European for the Parisian market. We imported white seedless Festival grapes from Petrolina, Brazil into the USA for the first time. The fruit arrived in the port of Philadelphia throughout November and early December and was sold to East Coast retail chains and to top wholesalers. This Novermber niche in the USA is quite important because the only white seedless available at that time are stored California Thompson packed in August and the Chilean fruit does not arrive until mid December.

On the soft fruit side, we were fortunate to have the support of Well Pict European and shipped plenty of “funny” berries for ASDA out of Mexico during the spring and winter months (blackberry, raspberry, blueberry). Perhaps our biggest success with Well Pict European in 2005 was an American strawberry deal we did for the month of November. Strawberries from Holland were limited and expensive. Well Pict Inc was just about to start picking a bumper crop of 2880 variety berries out of Oxnard and the volume was greater than the American market could absorb, but was ideal to fill the gap in the UK market.

In 2006 we are anticipating a continuation of the business we had in 2005 as well as adding new customers and commoditires. The need for more organic product seems to be increasing all the time and we see big opportunities for organic citrus and topfruit by ocean freight. Early spring organic stonefruit seems to have a window in the UK until the start of the European season.

We are in discussions about another USA strawberry season in November and we can make it more cost effective and incur the least amount of labour UK side.
As always the challenge for our export business from “The Americas” seems to be finding growers who are willing to pack the right product and put the work into EurpeGAP and the other UK supermarket required certifications. With the UK requirements becoming tougher and the regulations becoming more stringent, the pool of willing suppliers shrinks each year. AMS exotic’s role is to maintain that pool and develop other dedicated sources. In the end having good suppliers has consistently been the key to our success and cause for repeat business.

April 2006