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The Mexican government is set to invest US$228,843 during 2009 in promoting its fresh produce in the US, in the wake of accusations concerning contaminated tomatoes and peppers that have affected sales of Mexican products in the country.

In an interview with Mexican daily Excélsior, Lizeth Quintero Posadas, general manager of national export promotion agency México Calidad Suprema, said that in no previous year had the country allocated as high an amount for the promotion of Mexican products.

“We want to recover the confidence of the American market and publicise the fact that Mexico is taking preventative measures to guard against food contamination,” she said.

“The US is also the natural principal market for many of our producers,” she added.

Ms Quintero said that the agency had been allocated a budget of more than US$2.8m for the certification of products, trade missions and the development of promotional schemes in the Mexican national market, as well as in the US, Europe and Japan.

However, the México Calidad Suprema official criticised the decision of tomato producers in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa to launch their own food safety brand, ‘Sinaloa Safe Tomatoes’, earlier this year as a move that could cause a “conflict of interest”.

“Those who make their own brand will be judge and jury and in no region of the world is this acceptable,” Ms Quintero added.

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