Spain's persimmon harvest has fallen by between a fifth and a third this season, cutting supply of a fruit for which Europe has no other in-season source.

Valencian farmers' union La Unió Llauradora estimated the crop in the Valencia region, Spain's main growing area, at about 240,000 tonnes on 27 August, the lowest in a decade and about 34 per cent below last season.

The Spanish Kaki Association (AEK) – kaki being the name under which persimmons are sold in much of Europe – put national production potential at about 260,000 tonnes in early September, against a current maximum of about 340,000 tonnes.

Anecoop, a Valencian cooperative group with 40 to 50 per cent of Spanish production, told FreshPlaza on 30 September it expected its own crop to fall by 20 to 30 per cent to between 110,000 and 125,000 tonnes, of which it expects to market 85,000 to 90,000 tonnes.

The industry is divided over how much of the loss was caused by the summer's record heat.

Anecoop's French arm is unequivocal - it was the heat. "The drop in production is mainly due to the high summer temperatures," its said.

"Despite a good fruit set, the trees suffered significant heat stress, leading them to prioritize their own survival at the expense of the fruit. As a result, some of the persimmons fell before harvest. On the other hand, the remaining fruit is larger in size," Andreu Mir, sales director at Anecoop France, told FreshPlaza, on 13 October.

A cluster of yellow-orange persimmons beginning to colour among dark green leaves on a persimmon tree in Spain

The growers' association dates the damage earlier. AEK president Pascual Prats told Revista Campo on 3 September that the season had started about 12 per cent down, mainly because of a weaker spring fruit set, the stage at which flowers become fruit, and that hail may have cost a further 30,000 to 35,000 tonnes.

The association called the spring rains favourable for the crop. La Unió blamed an abnormally heavy natural fruit drop, sunburn from successive heatwaves and the summer storms.

RECORD HEAT

The heat itself is not in dispute. July, August and September were each the warmest of their month on record in the Valencia region, state meteorological agency AEMET said. Its station at Carcaixent, in the Ribera Alta district at the centre of the persimmon belt, reached 44.8C on 8 July.

The Ribera Alta had 41 days of 35C or more between June and September, more than three times the 1991-2020 normal and the most in a record going back to 1979, according to ERA5 reanalysis data accessed via Cropli.

[chart slug="spain-persimmon-heat-heat-days-35c"]

But heat on that scale did not break last year's crop. June-to-August maximum temperatures in 2025 averaged higher than this year's in the Ribera Alta and around Xàtiva to the south, yet Spanish persimmon exports in the season that followed rose 15 per cent to 194,000 tonnes, according to Eurostat figures.

That was even though another farmers' association, AVA-ASAJA, said hail had helped leave that crop 20 per cent below initial forecasts.

What set 2026 apart was a broken May and a violent August. The first half of May was very cold and very wet, AEMET said, with temperatures up to 3C below normal from 15 to 17 May, before a hot, dry second half took Sumacàrcer, in the Ribera, to 39.5C on 29 May. In 2015, AVA-ASAJA blamed a May heatwave for problems at fruit set and a heavier than usual early fruit drop.

On 20 August, the day after Carcaixent reached 44.5C, storms brought downbursts – sudden columns of descending air – with gusts above 100km/h across the Ribera, according to AEMET. Agroseguro, which runs Spain's government-backed crop insurance system, classed the event as a "reventón térmico", or heat burst, with severe hail.

Agroseguro has claims on 2,400 hectares, mostly persimmon orchards, and expects to pay out €17mn ($20mn). About 12,000 hectares of Valencian persimmons are insured each season.

Another hailstorm on 1 October cost a further 7,000 to 8,000 tonnes, the AEK estimated. Prats said Spanish production would now be lower than in 2024/25, when floods struck a month into the harvest.

Warm nights have also held the harvest back. "Kakis need cooler nights to develop their color, and that simply hasn't happened until this week," Ángel Cebriá, kaki and watermelon product manager at Anecoop, said on 30 September.

Night-time minimum temperatures in the Ribera Alta from 15 September to 8 October were the fourth-highest in 48 years, on the same ERA5 data.

NOWHERE ELSE TO TURN

Europe has no alternative supplier. Spain supplied 86 per cent of the 153,300 tonnes of fresh persimmons imported by EU member states between September 2025 and July this year, Eurostat data show.

Imports from outside the bloc totalled 1,900 tonnes, mostly from Peru and mostly between May and July. Italy and Greece exported about 6,000 and 5,000 tonnes respectively last season, much of the Greek fruit to Albania and Jordan.

Demand, meanwhile, has been growing. Persimmon sales in Dutch retail have risen by more than 50 per cent in both volume and turnover since 2021, according to Circana figures cited by FreshPlaza.

"Due to hail and storm damage, we expect lower availability, while demand for kaki remains as strong as ever," Sander Rutten, persimmon specialist at Dutch fresh-produce group Staay Food Group, said on 17 September.

[explore products="081070" reporter="eu" metric="quantity" view="chart" chartType="market" marketview="donut" years="2025" time="2025" title="Where the EU's persimmons come from, 2025" subtitle="Fresh persimmon imports (HS 081070) by EU member states by origin, calendar 2025, tonnes. Spain supplied 85%; trade between member states included"]

The last comparable shortfall was absorbed by smaller shelves rather than new suppliers.

When late-April frosts led La Unió to forecast a fall of more than 55 per cent in 2022, Spanish exports dropped 54 per cent to 92,100 tonnes in the 2022/23 season, while EU imports from outside the bloc rose only to 2,900 tonnes from 2,500 tonnes.

The average value of Spanish exports rose about 40 per cent.

[explore products="081070" reporter="es" flow="exports" metric="quantity" view="chart" period="monthly" years="2019-2026" title="Spain's persimmon exports, month by month, 2019-2026" subtitle="Fresh persimmons (HS 081070), tonnes by destination, January 2019 to July 2026. Shipments in October-December 2022, the frost year, were half those of a year earlier"]

PRICES LAG

Prices have yet to reflect the shortfall. Large Spanish persimmons at the Rungis wholesale market outside Paris averaged €2.71 a kg between 15 September and 14 October, below €3.02 in the same weeks of 2025 and €3.21 in 2024, according to France's RNM market-news service, which listed last season's fruit as EU-origin.

The RNM quote climbed to €3.10 on 12 October from €2.60 in late September.

Spanish farm-gate prices, what growers are paid, fell to €0.55 a kg in mid-September from €0.60 a year earlier, agriculture ministry data show. Anecoop and the AEK both say early prices are above last season's levels.

Mir said the trade might have to relax its cosmetic standards to keep Spanish fruit on sale until Christmas. "If we want to be able to extend the season until the end-of-year festivities, we will need to be a little more flexible regarding certain criteria that determine the visual quality of the persimmons," he said.

The August hail also wounded the wood of trees around Guadassuar, in the Ribera Alta. Enrique Costa, president of the Guadacoop cooperative, told Moncloa.com that growers would have to treat the damage next year before the trees could produce properly again.