Fruitbox

Change is in the air as the UK prepares to cut loose from its trading alliance with the EU. When it comes to banana imports, however, it’s likely to be business as usual from 1 January 2021, even if the country’s importers remain wary of potential disruption to the labour provision and logistical services on which they depend.

“That’s where we’re probably spending most of our time and energy, on making sure that those two things run as smoothly as possible,” says Robert Wells, chief executive of the UK’s biggest banana company SH Pratt, who was speaking in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox. “Those countries that we’re sourcing from have already made individual agreements with the UK government to continue.”

In many respects, the single-variety, low-margin banana trade represents very much the steady ship on a troubled sea as the UK’s fresh produce importers look to steer their business safely over the Brexit cliff-edge and land in calmer waters.

The idea that people are not prepared to pay more for bananas – in marked contrast to berries, the category that has now overtaken bananas as the UK’s most valuable produce category – is one that does not seem to trouble Wells.

“Of course I’d like to see greater value put on bananas and greater value going back to the growers, who have to take the risk every day of the week, every week of the year, to grow bananas in all sorts of challenging conditions,” he says.

“However, we must recognise that bananas are now regarded in the retail world as a staple item, and in the same basket as potatoes, carrots, topfruit and other things that are not really in the same category as berries. I’ve seen the rise of berries, but I don’t think that has detracted from the appeal of bananas.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

To find out how you can tell your story on Fruitbox, email [email protected].

To learn about sponsorship and advertising opportunities, email [email protected].

Read the latest fresh produce industry news at www.fruitnet.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The looming possibility of a no-deal Brexit might be a major headache for some in the fresh produce business, but for the commercial director of one of Belgium’s largest fruit exporters it’s uncertainty, rather than the probable impact, that is causing most concern.

In late November, as BFV’s Marc Evrard awaited the outcome of talks between London and Brussels to agree the terms of the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU, he told Fruitbox he remained happy that any Brexit-related bumps in the road would not be insurmountable.

“I think probably the market will still be there,” he commented. “It might be slightly more complicated or more hassle to reach the market. Definitely there are challenges – tariffs or congestion at entry points, for example – but these will not have any effect on the shelf-life of the fruit. So I don’t have any worries there. We can easily deliver one day to the next, and be there just in time.”

That said, could Brexit be about to cloud the UK’s trading landscape. and perhaps nudge a proportion of the group’s sizeable Conference pear deal in the UK, where it sold 28,000 tonnes last year, towards other less troublesome markets? In fact, BFV appears to be especially well prepared for such an eventuality.

“The thing is, at the start of the noughties we were already aware of the fact that we didn’t want to depend too much on one large market as a whole. At that time, we had Russia in mind, so we started working out different scenarios on targeting other markets,” Evrard explains, referring to recent expansion into India, China, Brazil and Mexico.

“Some of these might even have looked utopian, but simultaneously we also targeted markets closer to home, like Spain and Germany. Go back ten yeas and we hardly sold a kilo of Conference pears in the German market. Now we sell roughly 17m kilos there each year.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

To find out how you can tell your story on Fruitbox, email [email protected].

To learn about sponsorship and advertising opportunities, email [email protected].

Read the latest fresh produce industry news at www.fruitnet.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Investing in Peruvian horticulture is very much a safe bet, despite the political unrest seen in the country over the past couple of weeks.

That’s according to Steve Magami, co-founder and chairman of Agrovision, who was speaking to Chris White in the latest episode of Fruitnet’sweekly conversation series Fruitbox.

Based in Lima and Los Angeles, Agrovision has invested millions of dollars to build up more than 2,000ha of production in Peru – mainly blueberries, but also grapes, asparagus and avocados.

For Magami, the upheaval witnessed in recent days should not be a major cause for concern among those who depend on the country’s agricultural output.

“Volatility in politics is nothing new to Peru, but whoever has been in power over the last few years has been business-friendly, and we don’t see that changing,” he explains.

“Of course, politics gets the headlines, but fundamentally Peru continues its strong growth in industries like agriculture. It’s a vital, strategic sector for the government and the country’s largest employer.”

Peru is the official partner country at Asia Fruit Logistica ON, Asia’s leading fresh produce trade exhibition, which takes place online from 18-20 November, as well as a sponsor of Fruitnet’s conference event Asiafruit Congress ON, which was held on 17 November.

You can sign up for Asia Fruit Logistica ON here: www.asiafruitlogistica.com

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

To find out how you can tell your story on Fruitbox, email [email protected].

To learn about sponsorship and advertising opportunities, email [email protected].

Read the latest fresh produce industry news at www.fruitnet.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The importance of Asian markets to Peruvian fresh produce companies continues to grow, according to Mario Ocharan, export director of the country’s foreign trade and tourism body PromPerú.

Speaking to Chris White during the latest episode of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s series of conversations about the fresh produce business, Ocharan underlines the growing opportunity that exists for Peruvain fruit and vegetables in various Asian countries.

Next week, Peru is the official partner country at Asia Fruit Logistica ON, Asia’s leading fresh produce trade exhibition, which takes place online from 18-20 November, as well as a sponsor of Fruitnet’s conference event Asiafruit Congress ON, which is on 17 November.

“Asia is one of our priorities in terms of export promotion,” Ocharan comments, noting recent impressive growth in sales to China, South Korea, India and Japan.

That expansion in China has particularly impressive, he explains, with sales now more than US$600m compared with half that figure only three years previously. “So we are expecting to see increasing improvement in the next few years in the relations we have with companies in China and Asia in general,” he adds.

You can sign up Asia Fruit Logistica ON and Asiafruit Congress ON for free by using the discount code: FRUITNET20

Visit Asiafruit Congress ON – www.asiafruitcongress.com
Visit Asia Fruit Logistica ON – www.asiafruitlogistica.com

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

To find out how you can tell your story on Fruitbox, email [email protected].

To learn about sponsorship and advertising opportunities, email [email protected].

Read the latest fresh produce industry news at www.fruitnet.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Labelling Natoora as the world’s first vertically integrated global greengrocer might not be completely accurate, but for founder and CEO Franco Fubini it’s a description that is not completely wide of the mark.

“We’re not massive fans of the word greengrocer, but I think you’re right,” says Franco Fubini. “We’re trying to build a company that can deliver through very unique and transparent supply chains a level of trust and confidence to consumers around the quality of the fresh produce that they buy, both in terms of flavour and in terms of nutritional density. We feel there is the opportunity and scale to do this across the world.”

In the past decade and a half, Fubini and his colleagues have taken what began as an online farmers market and transformed it into a producer, importer, supplier, distributor, retailer and brand marketer – in short, a vertically integrated fresh produce company that aims to bring its diversity of range, quality and flavour to customers and consumers wherever they need it.

Focusing exclusively on provenance and seasonality, Natoora’s raison d’être has always been to source seasonal products and deliver them to consumers via sustainable supply chains. Staying true to that ethos, the group has been able to carve itself a niche at the very top end of the market. “It fits a growing need,” Fubini explains during his conversation with Fruitbox host Chris White. “There’s a consumer out there that is looking for something of higher flavour, particularly when it comes to fruits.”

The success of that approach over the past decade and a half has seen the company set up operations in New York, Paris, Barcelona, Los Angeles and London, where it has five of its own upmarket greengrocer outlets. Now there is talk of further expansion for the firm in places like Tokyo too. Plus, it has also managed to convince retailers like Waitrose, Whole Foods and Ocado to stock its branded products. No mean feat for a fresh produce company with its origins firmly rooted in the wholesale trade.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

To find out how you can tell your story on Fruitbox, email [email protected].

To learn about sponsorship and advertising opportunities, email [email protected].

Read the latest fresh produce industry news at www.fruitnet.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Linda Carobbi has witnessed first-hand the huge impact that the Covid crisis has had on the fresh produce business. As corporate director for fresh fruit at Savino Del Bene, the logistics and supply chain specialist based in Florence, Italy, she says has seen a dramatic shift in the way supply lines are managed and the technologies being used.

With capacity tightening and costs rising, the whole business of shipping fruit and veg from point A to point B has become more complicated, more challenging and more costly than ever before.

“There is no doubt that Covid had an impact in the entire global supply chain [that was] maybe never seen before,” she tells Fruitnet’s Chris White in the latest episode of Fruitbox. “It could be negative or positive, depending on the viewpoint, but for sure it was, and is, challenging.”

For Carobbi, the key word appears to be acceleration. Trends that were bubbling under before the pandemic, like a move to online ordering, have been far more pronounced. Similarly, the uptake of new methods of distribution – for example, this involving advanced systems like blockchain – appear to have been fast-tracked by the crisis.

“Covid-19 for sure favoured this digital transformation,” she explains. “Digitalisation has been identified as a tool to improve and facilitate accessibility to ports and terminals, to avoid long queues of trucks waiting to enter or go out from the terminal.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

To find out how you can tell your story on Fruitbox, email [email protected].

To learn about sponsorship and advertising opportunities, email [email protected].

Read the latest fresh produce industry news at www.fruitnet.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike Port is the chief executive of Port International, the Hamburg-based importer which recently took up the challenge of tackling climate change. Tomorrow marks exactly one year since the company started marketing CO2-neutral bananas under a new brand called Be Climate, a move that Port believes brings new value to a product that is renowned for its slim margins and frequently used as a weapon of choice among retailers engaging in price wars.

“Every Be Climate banana has a QR code, so the consumers with their mobile phones can find out very easily that, by buying one kilo of bananas, they have compensated 940g of CO2,” he explains during the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox. “But it’s not only showing them how much CO2 they balance. It also shows in a very transparent way what they have done with it.”

Port accepts that no single company can fight climate change on its own. “We cannot do everything but we have made a start, showing consumers and our partners that we have projects where we reduce emissions and for the rest we are balancing by investing in offset projects,” he argues.

So are retailers changing their attitude to the banana market? Are they buying into the idea of the fruit’s potential added value? The answer, says Port, is certainly not all of them, although he notes that Belgian supermarket chain Delhaize recently replaced its premium range with Be Climate and subsequently sold more bananas under the brand.

“Covid hasn’t helped,” he admits. “I see a tendency towards the race to the bottom and who has the most competitive bananas on the shelf, because consumers obviously are quite sensitive and they like to buy cheap bananas. In the future, they are afraid about what’s going to happen. So unfortunately the price fighter will [still] play a role. However, I believe that there will also be a lot of consumers who will focus on values and who are prepared to pay for quality, organics, fair trade and also lately for stopping climate change.”

The important lesson, he notes, is to build a narrative around the value you are trying to secure. “If you can put a story behind a brand, or a special quality, or a new variety, then there will be consumers and supermarkets giving you a chance with this product, because it sells.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

To find out how you can tell your story on Fruitbox, email [email protected].

To learn about sponsorship and advertising opportunities, email [email protected].

Read the latest fresh produce industry news at www.fruitnet.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Alba is a firm believer in the value of innovation as a driver of new business. As director of Valencia-based Genesis Innovation Group, a division of leading Spanish fresh produce business AM Fresh, he spearheads the company’s development of new citrus varieties, helping it to introduce even better types of fruit that will ensure the value of what it offers the market continues to grow.

“We wanted to go all the way from seed to shelf,” he explains in the latest episode of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s weekly series of conversations about the international fresh fruit and vegetable business. “So not only do we grow, pick and pack citrus for our customers, now we also develop our own varieties to complete the whole cycle.”

So what kind of new citrus varieties are needed for today’s customers? “Nowadays the market drivers are far more sophisticated than before. Flavour and colour are still very important quality attributes, of course, but consumer demands are also focused on things like shape, size, peelability, seedlessness, juice content, texture, the whole eating experience,” Alba tells Fruitbox host Chris White. “And there also important points like shelflife, healthy attributes and nutritional content, whether the fruit has been grown according to the right ethical and environmental standards.”

During the episode, Alba goes on to discuss various topics, including the potential for developing more customised products, balancing the needs of growers with commercial imperatives, making citrus production more sustainable, and combating the global coronavirus pandemic.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

To find out how you can tell your story on Fruitbox, email [email protected].

To learn about sponsorship and advertising opportunities, email [email protected].

Read the latest fresh produce industry news at www.fruitnet.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Hey knows the Asian fresh produce market almost like the back of his hand. As editorial director for Fruitnet in Asia, he’s seen some major changes to the way the market – or that collection of extremely varied markets – works, particularly in the past six months as a result of the Covid-19 crisis.

“The pandemic has really been a catalyst for change in shopping behaviour,” he tells Chris White during the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox. “Wet markets have been heavily impacted by Covid restrictions, like social distancing and shorter operating hours, and some consumers have stayed away due to hygiene and food safety fears.”

Modern retail formats like supermarkets have certainly benefited from that shift, but Hey believes the most significant growth is elsewhere. “The headline trend we’ve seen is online and digital channels growing their share of fresh produce sales,” he notes. “Pre-pandemic, China was already blazing a trail in the digitalisation of food retail with the integration of online and offline, but Covid has really accelerated the trend there.”

Plus there have been other interesting developments in other parts of the supply chain, including producers and importers developing their own innovative and ingenious ways of reaching consumers. “That’s a trend I think that we will likely see grow.”

During this specially extended episode of Fruitbox, Hey takes us through a whistlestop tour of Asian markets, summing up the various trends, challenges and opportunities that exist for fresh fruit and vegetable suppliers and buyers.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

To find out how you can tell your story on Fruitbox, email [email protected].

To learn about sponsorship and advertising opportunities, email [email protected].

Read the latest fresh produce industry news at www.fruitnet.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The first day of October 2020 was a busy and exciting one for Mike Browne, chief operating officer at Mission Produce. The company made history by listing on US stock exchange the Nasdaq, with an initial public offering aimed at raising a potential US$100m. And as more and more markets open to an increasing number of suppliers around the world, the prospects for those investors who buy into what some regard as green gold seem especially strong.

In episode 40 of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s Chris White talks to Browne about what the IPO means for Mission itself and for the avocado business as a whole. “It gives Mission a lot of opportunity to do more of what we already do,” Browne comments. “As a leader in the business, we’re laser-focused on fresh avocados. We’re going to continue to innovate, and continue to find ways to get the freshest, most wholesome avocados ripened correctly and to consumers.”

For Browne and his colleagues, receiving an injection of investment backing will give the company even more capacity to explore new commercial avenues faster – for example opening new markets or developing new sources of supply. “It’s going to give us a lot of flexibility to grow the company, to have more elasticity within the company, to have a responsible balance sheet, and to continue doing what we’ve done – to innovate not only in the distribution but also in the farming and vertically integrate,” says Browne. “We’re one of the largest growers of avocados in the world and we’re going to continue to grow more globally.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

To find out how you can tell your story on Fruitbox, email [email protected].

To learn about sponsorship and advertising opportunities, email [email protected].

Read the latest fresh produce industry news at www.fruitnet.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.