KOCHI: With the summer intensifying, the demand for various fruit varieties is also increasing and watermelon tops the list. Apart from watermelon, orange, grapes, cucumber, plum, pears, pomegranate, papaya and apple are other popular picks of customers this summer.
Usually, mangoes are the best sellers of the season and traders said the price of mangoes will come down once the supply of the fruits increases.
“At present, we are selling Neelam, Malgova and Alphonso mangoes. They are priced between Rs 70 and Rs 120 per kilogram. More varieties will hit the market by the first week of April and the demand for mangoes will also go up by that time. However, the increasing temperature is affecting our sales as we cannot keep fruits exposed to the sun for a long time,” said Shivakumar, a fruit seller at Kaloor. Usually, at the wayside fruit stalls, fruits are kept open in a cart or table so as to attract customers. “Since fruits are highly perishable items, we need to keep them covered during the day time,” added Shivakumar.
The number of fruits brought from other states has also increased in the last month. As per the available statistics, in the month of March itself, nearly 500 tonnes of fruits was already brought from other states. This figure is almost double the collective quantity transported from other states last April and May.
Watermelon, because of its low price and water content, is the best seller and is brought from states including Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
Orange follows the best seller list and Nagpur orange, the best variety in the country, is sold at a price ranging from Rs 60 and Rs 80 per kilogram. Oranges that are imported from Egypt and apple imported from New Zealand, France, Italy and Africa are also having good demand.
Among the local produces, banana and pineapple are being sold mainly in local markets. “We are looking into the sales of local produces, especially in the backdrop of the floods. We just want to assess the quantity of production and to know whether the product is affected or not after the floods. Field-level officers are already deployed to monitor the impact of local fruits production after the floods,” said Vegetable And Fruit Promotion Council Keralam (VFPCK) CEO Saji John.