Juan Pablo Casas joins as head of Latin America, Javier Martinez promoted to the newly created role of group head of farming
Unifrutti Group has announced two leadership appointments that support the Group’s growth ambitions. Juan Pablo Casas joins as head of Latin America, and Javier Martinez is promoted to the newly created role of group head of farming.
As head of Latin America, Casas will lead Unifrutti’s businesses across the region, with a mandate to accelerate growth, bring the region together as one operating platform and raise operational efficiency from orchard to customer. Latin America is a cornerstone of Unifrutti’s global operations, and the company believes there is considerable opportunity to grow in the region.
Casas brings extensive leadership experience across agribusiness and fresh produce throughout Latin America. He joins from David Del Curto, one of Chile’s most established fresh fruit businesses, where he served as CEO. An agronomic engineer by training, he combines operational, commercial and people-leadership experience with a strong track record in international and multicultural environments.
As group head of farming – a newly created role reflecting Unifrutti’s conviction that value in fresh produce is created in the field –Martinez will bring together the group’s farming expertise worldwide. His mandate is to lift performance in yield, quality and efficiency; to deploy agricultural technology and data-led agronomy at scale; and to build the farm of the future – ultimately creating a more productive and sustainable global platform.
Svet Varadzhakov, interim group CEO of Unifrutti, said: “These appointments strengthen our leadership at a pivotal time for the group. Juan Pablo brings the operational and commercial depth to accelerate growth in our most important production region. And by creating a global farming role, we are making a deliberate choice: to take the very best farming expertise within Unifrutti, combine it with technology, and apply it across every region we farm in. Better fruit, grown more efficiently, is the foundation of everything else we do.”
Casas commented: “Latin America holds enormous growth potential in global fresh produce, and Unifrutti has already built a strong platform here. My focus will be on bringing our regional operations together, sharpening commercial and operational performance, and capturing the opportunities ahead for our customers, our people and the business as a whole.”
Martinez said: “We have exceptional farming knowledge across our operations worldwide. My focus will be on connecting our teams, putting technology and data in the hands of our agronomists, and raising the bar on consistency and quality in every region we farm – so that Unifrutti’s customers benefit from the very best of what the Group has to offer.”
