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Strong Start to the Cherry Harvest Season in Serbia

Serbia, one of the biggest cherry producers in Europe, started the 2025 cherry harvest season quickly and without delays. On large farms covering hundreds of hectares, cherries are picked using machines – mainly modern FELIX Z and FELIX Z 4SH cherry harvesters, built for efficient orchard work.

Machine Harvesting Helps Farmers Work Faster

Cherries from these farms go mostly to processing – for juice, concentrate, frozen fruit, and products for the sweets and food industry. For the past few years, more and more farmers have chosen mechanical cherry harvesting to work faster and reduce losses. This is especially important now, as it’s getting harder to find enough seasonal workers.

FELIX Z 4SH four-head harvester working in a Serbian orchard

Cherry Prices Are High, but the Crop Was Small

This year brought mixed feelings. The purchase price of cherries was the highest in 10 years, but many growers were still unhappy – there simply weren’t enough cherries to pick.

Spring frosts and cold weather during flowering damaged the crop badly. In some areas, farmers lost up to 50% of their expected harvest.

Cherry orchards in Serbia – FELIX Z harvesters at work

Reliability Matters – Service Team in Action

FELIX Z cherry harvesters have been popular in Serbia for years. With large orchards and big harvest volumes, the newest four-head FELIX Z 4SH model is also working very well.

Our service team visited Serbian farms during the harvest to keep machines running. Even though the crop was smaller, every working hour counted. We reacted fast to any issues – even if the farm was hundreds of kilometers away. Sometimes we worked after dark to make sure the machines were ready again by morning.

Night service on a Serbian farm

Marketing Team on Site – Capturing the Season

Our marketing team joined the service crew during the trip to Serbia. We visited orchards, talked to customers, and collected great photo and video material.

We showed the machines in action and listened to the experiences of farm owners and operators. This kind of feedback helps us improve our machines and better explain how they work.

Fruit farm in Serbia with several FELIX Z machines in the field