Asoex ProChile Dutch Foodservice workshop

Representatives from Chile’s fruit industry met with members of the Dutch produce trade in the Netherlands on Monday to promote the role of Chilean fruit in the Dutch foodservice industry.

In a workshop at the Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce, organisers ProChile and Asoex brought together Dutch importers, distributors and foodservice operators to discuss the opportunities and challenges to supply Chilean fruit to Dutch foodservice operators.

“The aim of the event was to draw attention to the important opportunities that Chilean products, including fresh fruit, offer for the foodservice sector, and highlight Chile’s reputation as a reliable supplier,” said Osvaldo Marinao, director of ProChile’s office The Hague.

“Holland is a particularly important market as it is the gateway for Chilean fruit arriving into Europe and takes a sizeable volume and range of products, offering a great opportunity to increase supplies to the foodservice industry. In 2015 Chile exported US$369m of fresh fruit to the Netherlands and we want this to go on increasing.”

Asoex’s Charif Christian Carvajal said Chile’s strength lay in the fact that it was “a one-stop-shop able capable of meeting all of a caterer’s requirements”.

He pointed to a Nielsen study entitled Snack Attack 2014/15 outlining the growth in the European snack product market, which is currently worth US$167bn a year.

“The snacking trend is here to stay and foodservice should make the most of this fact,” Carvajal said.

“The study questioned more than 30,000 consumers and found that when it comes to snacking 62 per cent of them prefer fresh fruit snacks. To this end we have developed a series of recipes showing the versatility of our fresh fruit that can be downloaded from our website.”

According to Asoex figures, Chile shipped 233,000 tonnes of fresh fruit to the Netherlands in 2014/15, the main products being table grapes, apples, avocados, pears, kiwifruit and blueberries.