In today’s edition we are excited to share with you the where and when of ARRA™ Field days, so that you can be part of these special occasions. This global ARRA Field day tour starts in Egypt, continues to Israel, and finally lands in Sicily, but first we will go to the centre stage in Bakersfield, California!
California July 2023, Here we go!
This year we’re spicing things up and doing things a bit differently. To ensure each participant gets a personalized, intimate tour of the ARRA varieties, we will be offering a tailor-made, accurate and cross-sense experience.
In July our guests will enjoy an in-depth view of the very early, early and early-mid varieties, the newest launches as well as the known greats, with a special focus on the ARRA Red Factor celebrities. This will be followed, soon after, with the August session, where the full ARRA range will be presented.
If you haven’t yet received an invite or need more information, please contact us at grapa@grapaes.com so that we can guide you through both July and August registration.
Egypt field days – ARRA Varieties fascinate and captivate
On June 13-14, the ARRA representatives in Egypt, Ali Shahata and Eng. Fayez Dowidar, together with the International Grapa team, held 2 grape-packed field days. The ARRA varieties were showcased at the Agrostar Enaba farm worldclass test block, where the growers and marketers, from around the world, could catch a glimpse of the newest generation ARRA varieties: ARRA Fire Kiss™ (ARD 42), ARRA Fire Crunch™ (ARD 35), ARRA Cherry Crush (ARD 36) and ARRA Sunny Pop™ (ARD 39) and experience their advantageous characteristics in terms of timing, taste, eating experience, and irresistible appearance.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude and deep appreciation to Mr. Mokhles Harraz, his son Ahmed, his daughter Esraa, and the entire team at Agrostar Farm for their invaluable contributions in helping organize the recent ARRA field days, which were a resounding success. The expertise and dedication demonstrated by them are evident in the outstanding performance of the showcased ARRA varieties.
The days continued with a visit to Technogreen’s El Katta Farm, where the guests walked through the vast commercial blocks of ARRA Sugar Drop™ and ARRA Honey Pop™. Although this very early variety was already packed and shipped, a few rows of grapes were left on the vine especially for the guests to view.
A casual lunch and festive dinner were both perfect settings for growers to share and compare their experiences of the memorable day as well as meet new partners and old friends, who are part of the unique global ARRA table grape family.
To see local and international growers discussing the advantages and their plans together with European importers and supermarkets defined this event as a total supply chain one- stop-shop.
Josh Kahn, Senior Procurement Manager at AM Fresh was impressed by the assortment of very early black, red and white varieties. This window of opportunity is extremely beneficial to maintain year round, consistent, high quality produce. In terms of later varieties, Josh explained to local and international growers that ARRA Cherry Crush is “a bullet proof variety”. His testimonial continued to emphasize the variety’s merits, based on his experience with the variety imported this year to the UK from Brazil. “The flavour, the acids were there, but the sugars were high enough, green stems on arrival. Next season we’re going to take a lot, we love it!”.
Ali Shahata concludes: “We have held many field days previously in Egypt, but this year we had the most participants. The guests included Egyptian and international growers as well as buyers, who came especially to attend this event. All were waiting to see and evaluate the new generation of ARRA varieties, which won over everyone’s interest and admiration. It suffices to say that during and after the field days, I received many orders from major agricultural companies in Egypt to plant these new varieties. I would like to thank everyone who attended and participated in our celebration of the birth of the new generation of ARRA in Egypt.”
Many thanks to our generous hosts Agrostar and Technogreen, who opened their gates to all our guests from near and far, who came to celebrate the season with us. Our immense gratitude and appreciation to Ali and Fayez for all there hard work during the season supporting and advising the ARRA growers in Egypt, and especially for there efforts and care in organizing these memorable days.
Before flying on to our next field day we are delighted to present an ARRA Red Factor Spotlight on the earliest red around, The ARRA Fire Kiss™ Variety.
In the Egypt field day our guests had a unique opportunity to see ARRA Fire Kiss being evaluated right next to a flame block. The differences were on every level: colour coverage, size, crispiness, uniformity and yield. However, the biggest difference was in the maturity. While the ARRA Fire Kiss bunches displayed a full red colour, the Flame only reached 30% coloration. Additionally when the ARRA Fire Kiss grapes were ready to harvest, the Flame berries did not achieve desired sugar levels.
This first variety of the Red Factor sequence is the future of very early reds.
Israel – Giving ARRA growers the VIP treatment
Not too far away, in the commercial and test blocks of Sde Moshe, located in the Lachish region, Grapa’s R&D director, Uzi Yaron, led a group of ARRA growers to see the commercial ARRA Sugar Drop and ARRA Honey Pop, as well as a sneak peek at the ARRA Fire Kiss and ARRA Fire Crunch currently under evaluation in the test block.
Uzi addresses the growers: “We thank all the growers who took part in the variety showcase. The ARRA breeding programme is run by farmers for farmers and the meeting with the growers is always a significant event for us. I hope we have been able to present the new generation of our varieties faithfully. Good luck to everyone in the upcoming harvest season”.
The ARRA season started last month in the Jordan Valley with beautiful very early ARRA Honey Pop and now continues with harvest in the Lachish region.
Over the past week these beauties have been reaching great prices (sold in the Tel Aviv wholesale market for over $7/kg) and are in high demand on the wholesale market. Grown in an open field, this plot was ready before the early local variety, which was grown nearby under greenhouse. This year in Israel, the ARRA varieties have made a great leap in hectarage and market acknowledgement. It is very exciting to see this pattern manifesting itself in important grape growing countries.
Sicily - The next field day is right around the corner
If you’re in the neighbourhood, drop by Novello & C. located in Mazzarrone for the ARRA Field Day in Sicily that will be held on June 29, 2023.
Sicily’s grape industry has found a shining star in ARRA Sugar Drop grapes, known for their exceptional taste and visual appeal. With their perfectly balanced sweetness and crisp texture, these elongated berries have generated high praise and demand. The region’s unique climate and soil conditions have contributed to Sicily’s success in cultivating these grapes. This season, the top 5 sub-licensees in Sicily: Barbera International SRL, Colleroni Srl (OP Sicula), Frutta In Soc. Coop. A.R.L., OP Opens (Co.Ra Sifa Bio), OP Valleverde (Novello&C) have produced and started to market, already at the end of May, an outstanding crop of ARRA Sugar Drop grapes, demonstrating their dedication and expertise.
This is the setting for this coming week’s field day, organized by AVI, the exclusive territorial representative for the ARRA™ varieties in Europe, providing the perfect opportunity to see true-to-type ARRA Sugar Drop and understand why it has attracted so many fans.
For further details please contact AVI at: info@avifruit.com +39 3939471626
Don’t miss out on these other newsletters:
