by Tad Thompson

11/12/2007
GLOUCESTER CITY, NJ -- The green-hulled refrigerated ship Green Freezer docked Nov. 1 at the Gloucester Terminals LLC on the Delaware River waterfront, here. Under sunny and cool skies the next morning, stevedores unloaded the ship's cargo: the season's first Spanish clementines for the United States.

Javier Arnal, who keeps a seasonal office at Gloucester Terminals, said that the Spanish clementine quality "is the best in five or six years." From a promotional point of view, he added, "That's easy to say. But it's for real. Our [Brix] ratios are 10 to 10.5 on the first boat. Normally they are eight to nine, so that is high. Volumes are good. It's a normal season."

Mr. Arnal, who represents Nulexport Coop. V., which is based in Nules, Castelli￳n, Spain, said that the crop in Spain is down 10-15 percent, but only about 8 percent of Spain's total clementine exports go to the United States. Therefore, he said, the lower total crop will essentially have no effect on the relatively small portion that is destined for the United States.

The poor exchange rate of the U.S. dollar aginst foreign currencies is a factor for Spanish exporters - but even that is a non-issue, he said.

He stated that the United States "is a market for the future, not for the present. If you look for the present, volumes would go down. But we've been here 15 years and we hope to be here another 15 years at least -- a lot longer than that."

Mr. Arnal said that his firm has shipped "real steady volumes" to the United States via Gloucester Terminals for 15 years, but the cooperative first shipped product here in 1982. At that time, the U.S. market "was speculative if there was too much supply in Spain."

Mr. Arnal said that the cooperative ships the "Darling Clementine" label of LGS Specialty Sales Ltd. in the Bronx, NY, which is the exclusive marketer for Nulexport.

Mr. Arnal expects that his organization's clementines will be available in the United States until around mid-February.

Of the imported Clementines, the Spanish fruit seem to always rank among the best. On the other hand Chilean Clementines among the worst. The Spanish were responsible for making the Clementine popular in the United States. Do to the popularity of the fruit, many California growers have removed other varieties and replaced them with the little mandarins.

I would have to say that the Spanish clementines are my favorite citrus, but of the clementines I have had from other sources, I liked the Chilean clementines better than the ones from Morocco. That could have been an abberation due to environmental conditions or storage, especially since I have only had one box from each of those sources, but all of the many boxes I have had from Spain were great.

Glad to see they are on the way!

In my opinion nothing can beat Joe's Clemenule from Spain he gave me. I tasted the nules I bought at Costco in differet years but it's nowhere near close to Joe's clemenule.
Finally I have them fruiting again after I planted them on the ground.

Clemenule is (I believe) just a Clementine Mandarin from trees grown near the village of Nules, a village on the eastern coast of Spain