I’ve been looking a long time for a Yuzu (Citrus junos) tree in the Netherlands, and I’m really happy I just found someone selling them at a reasonable price.
Yuzu is a type of citrus, similar to a lemon. It’s one of the few citrus varieties that both tastes good, and is hardy enough to survive winter in Northern Europe! They survive temperatures down to -15C or so.
When I visited Tom in the US last year, I looked for a tree there in Washington state. The story was more or less the same as here. Yuzu trees are very much in demand now, and young trees take several years to mature, so they are just unavailable except at very high cost. In a few years it won’t be a problem to buy one, because they are on order everywhere.
Last year I found someone here in the Netherlands with 1 tree to sell, but he wanted something along the lines of US$150 for it, and that was too much to pay.
The tree pictured above that I just bought is grafted to Poncirus Trifolata rootstock, and I have this growing already in my garden. I should be able to make my own Yuzu trees within a few years…
That is a small tree. And the graft is somewhere in the plastic?
It is a tiny little tree.
The rootstock is thorny but the Yuzu is not. The graft is where the thorns end.
[update] Actually, the yuzu is a little thorny too, but the thorns are much smaller.
You really understand to start me daydreaming!
I will be looking for yuzu now 🙂
What a shame that it gets down to -24C where I live. I’d love to have a citrus – *any* citrus – that could be grown outdoors in my climate.
Søren: Maybe in a few years I can send you one…
melendwyr: It depends a little on how desperate you really are. Poncirus Trifolata, the rootstock on my new Yuzu tree, is hardy down to -25C. It’s called the Japanese Bitter Orange.
It’s not really the nicest of citrus plants, but you can make a sort of marmalade with it. I’ve also seen recipes on the Internet for various duck-sauce/meat marinades using it. It is however a real citrus plant, and it will almost certainly be hardy in your climate… You can graft to it, so if you find other cold hardy citrus varieties you could try them in this way.
wow I had no idea it took that long for them to develop. I love those Japanese sauces mixing shoyu and yuzu juice. yumm
Hm. I hadn’t heard of Trifoliate Oranges before. I’ll have to look into it more deeply.
Hello
We are a family that grow lemons in Israel
Next month we will pick our first yuzu fruits an sell
Them to restaurants .
Do you know how will be interested in fresh yuzu
In holland?
Maybe we will export some of the fruits
Thank you
Ben
Hi Ben,
I’m not really very knowledgable about this sort of thing. Maybe someone else will see this comment and have an opinion.
I think mostly, if you don’t alreay have a customer waiting to buy them, you have to go through the usual distribution networks. You can probably find more out about these by asking fellow farmers in Israel. These companies probably have more information about possible demand.
Holland itself does not have very rich culinary traditions. We do have a few Michelin class or similar restaurants, and some of them may be interested, but I doubt you will see enough demand from this alone to make it worth exporting here. In general, the supply chain for this kind of food is very dominated by a few large companies. Restaurants are often reluctant to go outside of their usual suppliers for one reason or another, usually to save costs.
Otherwise, Holland is a major European logistics hub and wholsale distributor for food in Europe. For this however, you probably need to be prepared to offer very high volumes of a very uniform product, at low prices.
You might consider doing something like this:
http://www.bifurcatedcarrots.eu/2012/09/greek-olive-oil-soap/
That is, set up your own website to sell either fresh fruit or other products, then hire a logistics company to fill orders. If you like, I can try to find some contacts for this. If you get a modest number of orders, you can probably negotiate very reasonable shipping costs, probably for much of Europe.
I hope this helps…
Patrick
Hi all,
Since this season an Spanih company is also producing and selling in Europe YUZU fruit as trees at a reasonable price: http://www.citrusandlife.com. Yes, I agree with Patrick, YUZU is still a niche product, and you need good logisticts and search for custumers.