Casi is reporting a surge in demand for its new pink tomatoes, particularly among Polish consumers.
The Almerian cooperative launched the variety three years ago and last season sales reached 4,500 tonnes. With planted area almost doubling, output in 2016/17 will be far higher Casi said.
The tomatoes are large and somewhat flat, with a sweet fleshy interior and sweet taste that is reminiscent of home-grown ones,” said president Miguel Vargas.
Buoyed by the success its success in Poland, Casi is now working on opening up new export markets and Vargas is confident that producers will adopt it with enthusiasm given their potential to raise profitability levels.
“Competition from countries outside the European Union is becoming increasingly aggressive and producers need to focus their efforts on finding new varieties that are more productive and appealing to consumers, while at the same time offering their clients new formats that better suit the market,” he said.
In Casi’s case, this has meant an ambitious two-year modernisation programme that has seen investments in state-of-the-art sorting and packing machinery, the implementation of a pioneering internal quality control system and a new auction house equipped with automated palletisation that will bring significant cost reductions and enable the company to improve the service it offers its clients. In all, the company has invested more than €11m in the upgrade.
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