The president of the Fundão Chamber, Paulo Fernandes, highlighted the possibility of taking advantage of the event to buy cherries directly from the producer.

“The value lies entirely with the producer, with the families. It is a completely fair trade, it is a trade with the community, without intermediaries”, highlighted the mayor.

According to the Mayor of Fundão, the Cherry Festival “generally has 20 to 25 thousand people who visit it” and it is one of the festivals in the municipality that attracts the most people from outside the region.

The mayor highlighted the impact that the event, carried out by the village community, which opens the ground doors of their homes, has on the locality, but also on the municipality.

Paulo Fernandes highlighted that throughout the hotel industry, occupancy rates are very close to 100 percent and predicted that, until the date of the festival, capacity in hotels will run out.

The president of that municipality in the district of Castelo Branco stressed that “there have already been previous editions” in which approximately 50 tons of the fruit, the equivalent of 25 thousand two-kilo boxes, were traded at the Cherry Festival, in Alcongosta, five minutes away from Fundão, which represents “a very significant value” for the community.

Bringing together all the other components, from restaurants, entertainment, taverns, crafts, and other offerings, Paulo Fernandes stressed that the economic impact on the locality is “certainly greater than 500 thousand euros”.

For the second year in a row, producers are complaining about very sharp drops in production, but the mayor guaranteed that there will be no shortage of cherries at the event that takes place between the 7 and 10 June.

“It is true that there is talk of losses of around 70 percent, depending on the varieties, but the information I have is that we will have enough cherries to liven up and boost this local market for the Fundão Cherry Festival”, assured Paulo Fernandes.

The four-day programme includes concerts, street entertainment, live cooking, theatre, gastronomy, walks through the orchards, children's entertainment, other attractions, and parallel initiatives.

Cláudia Pascoal, performs on Saturday, at 22:00, in front of the village church and on Sunday it is the turn of the band Funil and Abelhinha to do the same at the same time.

At ’Casa da Cereja’, experimental workshops on ‘esparto’, a craft that was once common in Alcongosta, will be held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

The scientific and innovation component is also present and on Saturday, at Quinta Ciência Viva da Cereja e das Ideias, the “Cherry Meeting 4.0 – On the path to modernisation” will take place. The opening of the Cherry Festival is scheduled for Friday 7 June at 7 pm.