Fruit World Breda has completed its first shipment of pomegranate arils into Europe, ahead of the first full season of production for the company’s new Indian joint venture, FreshAcres Agri India.
The first shipment arrived in the Netherlands last week and will form part of the 300 tonnes of pomegranate arils that the company, a joint venture between Fruit World Breda and Naturefresh Logistics, will sell in key markets, such as the UK and Germany, as well as the Netherlands.
Fruit World Breda’s managing director, Michael Aagard, told Fruitnet that substantial volumes of arils will be shipped to Europe at the beginning of August once the joint venture’s production facility in India had completed its internal auditing process.
Although FreshAcres will export the bulk of its production to Europe, Mr Aagard said volumes would also be shipped to Japan and Australia, while interest in taking shipments had also been received from the US and Canada.
The joint venture also expects to sell around 10 per cent of its overall production in the Indian domestic market.
Although the company will only export modest volumes initially, Mr Aagard said it expects to double exports to more than 600 tonnes a year by the end of next year.
According to Fruit World’s managing director, the predicted rise in exports in being driven by increasing demand in key European markets, where he says pomegranates are becoming “more and more popular” with consumers.
“It’s a ‘superfruit’, which offers health benefits to consumers, who are seeing it increasingly often mentioned in the news,” he said.
FreshAcres Agri India, which was formed in October 2007 by Fruit World Breda and Naturefresh Logistics, farms over 13,000ha of pomegranates in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
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