The world’s first and third largest kiwifruit exporting nations have formed a strategic alliance to develop international awareness and provide promotional support for their fruit.
The presidents of the Chilean Kiwifruit Committee (CKC) and the Kiwifruit of Italy Consortium are to sign a cooperation agreement on the first day of Fruit Logistica in February, to forge a joint way forward for their industries.
“We have talked for some time at events such as international forums and it has become increasingly clear that Chile and Italy have common kiwifruit challenges and opportunities to address,” said Kiwifruit of Italy’s president Alessandro Fornari. “It started off with discussions about technical issues, but both sides have recognised the benefits of sharing knowledge, information and expertise, as well as providing a united front to customers around the world.”
The alliance will represent both organisations’ member producers and exporters in key markets. “Both countries are strong in different international markets and will benefit from the experience and expertise that their partners have built up over many years of leading the kiwifruit industry,” said CKC president Carlos Cruzat.
Italy is the largest exporter of kiwifruit globally and has also traditionally been the stronger in Europe, while Chile has a healthy market in the Americas and South East Asia.
“While our growers and exporters remain the marketers of the fruit, we will work together with them to enhance their very successful existing relationships around the world and support the fruit with awareness-building initiatives and promotions designed to tap into the potential we have to raise sales by delivering more consistent fruit over a longer season to distributors and importers in several continents,” said Cruzat.
The members of both organisations in their respective countries have agreed to adhere to a quality protocol that takes into account the differing natural conditions in which kiwifruit is grown.
“We can both learn from the ways our growers have produced kiwifruit over many years,” said Fornari. “This agreement will create the platform for long-term cooperation to meet the international market’s requirement for consistently high quality kiwifruit, in terms of eating experience and all-round performance.”
Cruzat said he wanted the message sent out to customers in markets around the world to be loud and clear.
“We are forming an extremely beneficial kiwifruit agreement that gives you viable partners to source a nutritious, great tasting quality kiwifruit that can be enjoyed by consumers, distributors and retailers alike, across a large proportion of every year,” he said.
According to Asoex, Chile exported 210,531 tonnes of kiwifruit in the 2011/12 season. The US, Germany and Italy were its top three markets. The World Kiwifruit Review published by Belrose showed that Italy shipped a total of 358,667 tonnes during the same period, its biggest markets being Germany, Spain and France.
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