Fruitbox

Clemengold founder Abs van Rooyen talks to Chris White about how the South African citrus brand has gone global. Its development has lessons for produce branding in future.

Fruitbox is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce business. Every episode attracts a large global audience that tunes in to hear exclusive interviews and analysis about fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruitbox is produced by Fruitnet Media International.

Carlos Bonet and José Vottero of FRESH FRUIT-X talk to Chris White about how the growth of supermarkets in places like Vietnam and Malaysia is powering the growth of their new business focused on fresh fruit and vegetable marketing in South East Asia.

Fruitbox is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce business. Every episode attracts a large global audience that tunes in to hear exclusive interviews and analysis about fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruitbox is produced by Fruitnet Media International.

Yuyuh Sukmana, the Jakarta-based South-East Asia regional manager for Vanguard International. talks to Chris White about the prospects for South-East Asia in view of the slowdown in demand in China.

Fruitbox is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce business. Every episode attracts a large global audience that tunes in to hear exclusive interviews and analysis about fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruitbox is produced by Fruitnet Media International.

Matt Palise of Red Rich Fruits talks to Chris White about how a fresh produce business deals with the high costs that go with marketing fresh fruits and vegetables in Australia.

Fruitbox is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce business. Every episode attracts a large global audience that tunes in to hear exclusive interviews and analysis about fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruitbox is produced by Fruitnet Media International.

Kristian Moeller of GlobalGAP talks to Chris White about the latest improvements to the world's most widely used system to certify fresh fruit and vegetables.

Fruitbox is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce business. Every episode attracts a large global audience that tunes in to hear exclusive interviews and analysis about fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruitbox is produced by Fruitnet Media International.

World Apple & Pear Association president Dominik Wozniak and secretary general Philippe Binard talk to Chris White about the coming season for apples and pears in Europe and plans for World Apple Day this 15 November.

Fruitbox is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce business. Every episode attracts a large global audience that tunes in to hear exclusive interviews and analysis about fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruitbox is produced by Fruitnet Media International.

In this sponsored episode of Fruitbox, Matt Holland of TIVE talks to Chris White about how supply chain disruption now requires new technical solutions that improve transparency and allow for immediate fixes.

Fruitbox is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce business. Every episode attracts a large global audience that tunes in to hear exclusive interviews and analysis about fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruitbox is produced by Fruitnet Media International.

Johnathan Sutton of global avocado grower and marketer Westfalia talks to Chris White about how sustainability is playing a much more central role in the marketing of avocados.

Fruitbox is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce business. Every episode attracts a large global audience that tunes in to hear exclusive interviews and analysis about fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruitbox is produced by Fruitnet Media International.

Margriet Looije of Dutch tomato grower and marketer Looije talks to Chris White about how focusing on quality and taste has helped grow sales. Recorded live at Global Tomato Congress in The Hague on 24 May 2022.

Fruitbox is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce business. Every episode attracts a large global audience that tunes in to hear exclusive interviews and analysis about fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruitbox is produced by Fruitnet Media International.

FDOC global marketing director Samantha Lane tells Chris White about the comeback for Florida grapefruit.

Many of the world’s leading tomato suppliers have invested heavily in better-tasting varieties, but the widespread perception that tomatoes ‘don’t really taste of anything’ seems to persist. Why is that?

For Synnøve Johansson, business development manager at Belgian cooperative Hoogstraten, the fact that consumers appreciate tastier products hasn’t yet altered the received wisdom among most supermarket buyers in the mainstream market.

Simply put, more investment is needed to create better-tasting supply, and more support is needed from retailers in particular to convey that quality. “A lot has changed in the category, but there are still tasteless tomatoes in the category,” she tells Fruitnet’s Chris White in the latest episode of Fruitbox.

The value of tomatoes that taste better is clear, Johansson adds: “Taste equals repeat purchase. Yes, as consumers we want local produce, we would like it to be organic, sustainably produced, sustainably packaged, and cheap.

“However, when we know it tastes good, all of these other requirements become less relevant. Taste is the best way for us as an industry to support that growth in consumption that we all want to see.”

To encourage more retailers to buy into that theory, Hoogstraten has invited a number of buyers to visit its production sites, where they can sample a range of great-tasting varieties – including some that are not yet available on the market.

Hosted by Chris White, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Fruit Logistica has been postponed from February to April, a point in time when the world’s leading fresh produce trade fair should be safer, not to mention more accessible.

Kai Mangelberger, project director of Fruit Logistica, believes the decision was a necessary one. “if you look at all the forecasts and you listen to all the experts, then it’s clear that April is a safer date than February,” he tells Chris White in the latest episode of Fruitbox.

“In addition, we also have the benefit of hindsight: we know what happened last year… We already have all the necessary hygiene and safety protocols in place. They will apply in April too,” he adds.

Mangelberger also believes that “many more” visitors will be able to attend Fruit Logistica in the European spring.

“We expect restrictions will be different to those that apply today,” he suggests. “And I am very optimistic that by next April more vaccines will have been approved by the German authorities. That means Fruit Logistica can be open to more people from around the world.”

Hosted by Chris White, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Lemons have been an undoubted sales success for the fresh produce industry in the past few years. But for Juan Martín Hilbert, fresh fruit commercial director at the world’s largest lemon producer, San Miguel, it is not yet time to start cutting slices for a round of celebratory drinks.

“There has been a big jump in the consumption of lemons, but the supply is catching up and sometimes overtaking demand in some months of the year. That’s a challenge for the industry,” he observes during the latest edition of Fruitbox.

“It’s still low if you compare it with other items. Consumption per capita in the US is only 2kg per year, whereas in Europe it’s more than 3.4kg.”

But there will be opportunities to sell even more, he agrees, provided the marketing helps consumers understand the fruit’s potential benefits. “My dream is that every person in the world drinks lemon water in the morning,” he says. “A lot of people I know are getting used to this idea and that drive is helping consumption.”

San Miguel has expanded its lemon production outside its native Argentina in recent years, adding sources in Uruguay, South Africa and Peru.

And having consolidated its position as a dependable counter-seasonal supplier out of the Southern Hemisphere, the next decade could potentially see it become a global source of the fruit.

“The second stage we are working on is being closer to the consumer,” Hilbert reveals. “Now we think that the power is shifting and we need to be very close to the consumer to give [them] a very good, fresh product all year round. Some retailers really need that.”

With commercial offices already established in Seville, Valencia and Shanghai, and with another due to open soon in Philadelphia, proximity could soon lead to production.

“We need to be close to the customers there, and if they need us to produce in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s definitely something we can work on.”

Hosted by Chris White, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

The importance of air cargo services to the global fresh produce business has certainly taken off in the past 18 months as the Covid-19 pandemic has landed ocean container shipping networks with a major circulation problem.

As Orlando Wong explains in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox, a sharp increase in demand for consumer goods in the world’s major markets has led to logjams in ports that where the traffic previously flowed freely.

“The last I checked there were about 64 vessels waiting to come into dock at [the Port of] Long Beach,” he reveals. “The situation has really not improved. The container yard is quadruple stacked, [whereas] normally it’s only double stacked. Essentially, Long Beach is now like a storage dock. There is no room to work around, and the infrastructure needs to be expanded in a big way.”

Wong is CEO of perishable produce logistics specialist Able Freight, and from his headquarters in Los Angeles he can see firsthand the pandemic’s impact on both sea and airfreight.

And despite a simultaneous decline in the number of passenger flights circumventing the earth, he says it’s also apparent that airlines are working to free up new space for cargo to take to the skies.

“It’s been a very challenging 18 months. Obviously it started with 95 per cent of all international passenger flights suspended. So we had to look elsewhere, mostly at charter airlines, for cargo capacity,” he recalls.

In effect, the new normal for airfreight may well involve a larger volume of temperature- and time-sensitive cargo capacity being in the sky.

“We were very fortunate that the airlines started to put their thinking caps on, and started converting passenger planes to cargo planes. So that really helped a big deal.”

During his 15-minute chat with Fruitnet’s Chris White, Wong also considers the ongoing effect of fuel price inflation, the potential for new models of electrified transportation, and the importance of making supply chain temperature control even more visible.

Hosted by Chris White, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

If you were to design the perfect supermarket, what would it look like? So the story goes, at one point during Aldi Australia’s recent network redesign, one of the group’s two managing directors was asked what he thought of some proposed store visuals.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” he reportedly replied. "Just show me the data."

More important, it seems, was the question of how the stores would function beneath their newly refreshed outward appearance.

For Mark Landini, the creative director of Sydney-based company Landini Associates who helped Aldi Australia reinvent itself, it’s not definitely just about design. His job is to come up with new store concepts that don’t just look good, but work well too.

And for a number of customers, including Aldi, Esselunga, Marks & Spencer and Loblaws, it is a strategy that seems to be working. Over the past three years, Landini has helped Aldi Australia to revamp all of its 650 stores.

Each store now has an eye-catching, unique look that incorporates work by local artists, but of at least equal importance has been the project’s emphasis on restoring a sense of joy to the shopping experience, with apparent great success.

“Design is often seen as purely decorative, as something they can apply to the skeleton of a business,” he explains in the latest episode of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s series of conversations about the fresh produce industry.

“But we get in there before that skeleton is determined. We apply the decoration, but that is really only secondary to what we primarily do, which is to review how to make things work better, how to function better, and, in the case of fruit and vegetables, how to look better.”

For Landini, the way fruit and vegetables are displayed in supermarkets doesn’t always achieve the best possible result in terms of engaging customers. “Often they are covered up by facetious, thematic design that is completely unnecessary, very expensive and not very well lit,” he argues. We always start with the display and the lighting, then see what money we have left over. Not the other way around.”

Beyond the visual aspect and superficial experience, the functionality of supermarkets needs improvement, Landini says. “The thing that supermarkets have forgotten is that they started as markets,” he says. “They sell largely the same product and can therefore be exciting, chaotic, wonderful, noisy, shouty places.”

But in many cases, he suggests, they have become operationally led and largely sanitised. “They don’t make use of the valuable assets which they have. They need reinventing. Somebody needs to get the grown-ups in the room and have a jolly good talking to them to see if they can’t actually reach something which is a bit more sensible.”

During his conversation with Fruitnet’s Chris White, Landini goes on to discuss what supermarkets can do to improve their fruit and vegetable offer, as well as the more fundamental changes to the way we will shop for food in future.

Hosted by Chris White, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

For more information about Landini Associates, visit www.landiniassociates.com.

As with so many industries, the pandemic brought the world of trade exhibitions to its knees over the past 18 months.

There is still another year to go before Asia Fruit Logistica, Asia’s biggest and most international fresh fruit and vegetable trade event, can open its doors again. But for the show’s new executive director, David Axiotis, the fundamental strength of the business itself remains a source of optimism and confidence.

Axiotis was speaking to Fruitnet’s Chris White during Asiafruit Congress, which brought together more than 1,700 people from over 80 countries earlier this week for two days of online insight and networking all about Asia’s fresh produce business.

Firstly, he pointed to the huge opportunity presented by China. “It simply is a massive market for suppliers from Asia and all over the world,” he commented. “According to the latest statistics, China imported more than US$8bn worth of fruit in the first half of 2021, up 24 per cent year on year. Cherries, fresh grapes, and citrus all recorded significant growth.”

But Asia’s emerging commercial opportunity is not just about China, he added. When Asia Fruit Logistica returns, he pointed out, that multiplicity of markets is likely to support further dramatic growth in the produce arena.

“There are another 20 markets that play a significant role in the trade, and that’s also at Asia Fruit Logistica,” he said. “It’s exactly this combination that makes Asia Fruit Logistica so special in the end. It’s a truly pan-Asian platform connecting all the important players in Asia. That’s what makes it unique and indispensable, whether you are based in China or wherever in Asia.”

The countdown to Asia Fruit Logistica 2022 has already begun. It will take place on 7-9 September 2022 at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong.

Hosted by Chris White, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Smaller strawberries could meet new consumer demand for ultra-convenient, healthy foods and mimic the kind of success that blueberries have had in recent years as a popular snack item.

That’s according to Marion Regan, managing director of Hugh Lowe Farms, a major supplier of strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries based in Kent, south-east England.

As she explains in the latest edition of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox, investment in better-eating and more productive varieties has underpinned the category’s commercial success over the past two decades, and helped it become the largest single product group in the UK fresh produce market in terms of sales.

Crucially, she says, good-tasting fruit has been a key ingredient in the remarkable rise of fresh berries over the past couple of decades.

“Berries are just a wonderful product,” she tells Chris White during a recent visit to the farm. “They tap into the zeitgeist of people who want healthy, convenient, highly snackable fruit. And I think we’ve done a very good job of putting something better in front of the consumer every single year – in terms of better-eating varieties and fresher fruit.”

But for Regan, it’s not just about taste. “It’s the whole experience of eating a berry,” she argues. “For me, what you really want is that quintessential English, balanced strawberry flavour. Not just sweet, but all of those aromatics there as well.”

One noticeable consumer trend for berries is that they are now a more common sight at breakfast time.

And having also observed a dramatic spike in interest around home baking – especially during lockdown – Regan says she was keen for her company to offer the market strawberries that required no cutting.

So Hugh Lowe Farms now supplies a product called Mini Berries, a line of smaller strawberries that is more reminiscent of the fruit seen in French pâtisseries.

“The specification is smaller, but they are actually very snackable and attractive to children,” she observes. “There’s more than one way to eat a strawberry.”

Hosted by Chris White, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

The supermarkets’ rapid rise has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in the amount of data that flows along their supply chains.

But as Tesco’s technical manager for salads Mike Corbett explains in the latest episode of Fruitbox, all of that information helps to reassure consumers that the food they buy has been sourced in a safe, secure, ethical and sustainable manner.

“The demand for more data and more insight has steadily risen [over the last 30 years],” Corbett explains. “There are lots of ways and means of capturing data and demonstrating to consumers that we are being ethical, we are trying to be sustainable, we are trying to be traceable, we do care about provenance. A huge amount of data has to be captured to demonstrate our credentials.”

For some in the business, it might seem that retailers ever-increasing demand for information is excessive and perhaps even intrusive. But as Corbett observes, efforts have been made to reduce the administrative burden on suppliers.

“We’re continually demanding more information, and greater access, but we’re building up these pictures to help customers understand that we’re trying to do the right thing by them,” he argues.

“Yes, it can be quite challenging for suppliers and producers, but there are reasons for that. These are things that customers care about.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

What does ‘managing your data better’ actually mean? For Nico Broersen Junior of Dutch startup AgriPlace, it can be something as simple as reducing the volume of emails you send and receive, or minimising the number of times you enter information into a spreadsheet.

Even for tech-savvy people in the fruit and veg business, it can be hard to really understand what data management really involves in practice.

But as Broersen warns in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox, fresh produce companies are storing up trouble for themselves by hoarding crucial information in “dangerously large spreadsheets”, “endless folders” and increasingly large email databases.

“This makes it really hard to see what is going on in your supply chain, and also to identify risks,” he explains. “When a risk occurs – for example a producers loses its certification – you want to be able to see through which packhouses and suppliers a product has arrived, to avoid risk now or later on.”

And with retailers asking more and more of their suppliers in terms of knowing precisely where their products originate, these days the stakes are even higher.

That’s why AgriPlace is helping companies move to safer and more sustainable practices, by using digital systems to collect information automatically and keep it accessible.

“We help companies ensure the product fulfils the customer requirements, while saving them time and cost by not having to send endless emails and filling spreadsheets and ERP systems manually,” he says.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Artificial intelligence can now be used to predict the future with unprecedented accuracy.

That’s good news for companies in the fruit and vegetable business, where the products’ sheer unpredictability in terms of yield and shelf-life remains the industry’s biggest inherent challenge.

Michele Dall’Olio, chief operating officer Fresh4cast, says companies have started to unlock the big potential that AI offers. In particular, he says, greater predictability means greater profitability.

“Being able to see into the future, and have a good understanding of what happened in the past, brings you multiple benefits,” he tells Chris White during the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox.

Fresh4cast has pioneered the introduction of AI-based yield forecasting software over the past decade, and in doing so has enabled suppliers of items like berries and tomatoes to fine-tune their operations by making them more predictable.

“If you think about the medium to long-term time horizon, this can help you avoid potential shocks to your supply chain, or help you leverage better an opportunity that the market presents – like for example by arranging a promotion or organising your pickers for next season.”

There are also short-term benefits, he continues. “You can, for example, manage your workforce better in the packhouse. Or you can arrange an alternative sales channel to avoid wastage, in case you have an overstock of a product.”

Dall’Olio is keen to dispel some of the myths around artificial intelligence. “AI is not that sentient being that all the sci-fi movies are telling us about. It’s a smart piece of software that is very good at performing large amounts of relatively simple and easy tasks,” he observes. “AI is a tool that allows you to perform multiple tasks with exponential ease.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Experience, instinct, maybe even just gut feeling – all of these things play an important part in helping fresh produce companies make strategic decisions.

But in a world where computers are able to collect and even interpret an increasing volume of potentially useful information relating to almost every single link in fruit and vegetable supply chains, perhaps nowadays a more analytical, data-focused approach to business makes more sense.

Giles Barker is chief executive of KisanHub, a company that has developed data analysis software specifically for the fresh produce sector. As Barker explains in the latest episode of Fruitbox, this platform allows produce companies to collect their data in one place and to analyse it, which apparently helps them boost their margins and improve relationships with customers.

“Fresh produce has been lagging behind other industries and I think it’s time to move it forward,” he says.

But the idea isn’t to replace the expertise that lies in the people who run fresh produce companies, Barker is keen to point out: “Gut feeling is something that you develop over many years of seeing the same thing happen, or different things happen each season, so you learn how to take decisions on the fly. Platforms like ours do something similar, the only difference is that the data doesn’t get forgotten. It’s always in the system and then you can make comparisons.”

During the conversation, Barker discusses the enduring importance of human involvement in data analysis, the prospects for connecting consumer and retail demand patterns with production information, and the need to open new opportunities by making agriculture a more digitally connected business.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Finding a safe and sustainable way to extend the shelf-life of fruit and vegetables represents an important priority for anyone in the business of selling fresh produce.

That’s why shelf-life extension technologies like SmartFresh, first launched around two decades ago to great acclaim in the apple business, have been so instrumental in driving up quality and reducing waste.

Now, having had a major impact not just on apple supply chains but also on items like kiwifruit, plums, and pears, SmartFresh developer AgroFresh is introducing VitaFresh Botanicals, a set of edible, plant-based coatings that promise to have the same impact on other products such as citrus, avocados and mangoes.

As Carles Doménech Rodríguez, the group’s global coatings and disinfectants product lead, explains in the latest episode of Fruitbox, the new range is an important step forward in terms of extending freshness.

“VitaFresh gives retailers a much stronger opportunity to market the best-quality products, and also to improve consumer satisfaction while increasing profit potential,” he explains.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Fresh fruit and vegetables have a central role to play in safeguarding the health of consumers all over the world.

That’s the view of Inci Dannenberg, Head of Global Vegetable Seeds Strategic Marketing for the Crop Science division of Bayer.

Speaking during Fruitnet’s World of Fresh Ideas, a free virtual event for the international fresh produce business which takes place on 26-27 May, Dannenberg outlined various sustainability challenges that the world’s food system faces.

She referred in particular to climate change, limited natural resources, a growing population with diverse nutritional needs, and people’s varying abilities and opportunities to access fresh fruit and veg.

She also underlined the potential for the produce business to work together and drive positive change.

“There has never been a more important time for innovation and collaboration to tackle these challenges,” she commented.

“Fruits and vegetables are an essential part of our nutritional needs as the World Health Organisation recommends five servings a day to prevent disease and to maintain health.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

For Gilad Sadan, the term ‘box fresh’ has a real resonance. Not just for the fruit and vegetable products housed in the carefully designed packaging his Melbourne-based consultancy Navi Co Global helps to create, but for all kinds of consumer goods – including a newly delivered pair of green Adidas trainers (“sneakers!”) made from recycled materials.

And in a world where environmental concerns mean that packaging’s place in the global supply chain is under more scrutiny than ever, the word ‘sustainability’ also has added significance for Sadan.

As he explains in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox, buying things that are marketed as sustainable – be it fresh produce or indeed footwear – has emerged over as a way for people to show support for something they believe to be important.

“I think what we’re seeing now is that sustainability is becoming something that consumers are talking about and engaging with, or they want to do the right thing as far as they are concerned,” he says.

“But what the right thing is, is still to be determined. I think coronavirus has done a wonderful job bringing up to the surface what the true meaning of [sustainability] is.”

Post-pandemic, Sadan sees even more of a shift ahead in terms of attitudes to packaging.

“Packaging is still there, but the purpose that it fulfils is different now,” he comments. “The primary and secondary packaging is very different now, because if you’re selling direct to consumers [via e-commerce] then it doesn’t have to be as exciting as it is on the retail floor. The product gets delivered to your house after you’ve made the decision to purchase.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Long distances can always be overcome in the fresh produce trade.

Juan Gonzalez Pita has proven that beyond doubt since he co-founded import-export firm Salix Fruits around ten years ago.

From small beginnings in his home country of Argentina, the group has become a key player in several of the Northern Hemisphere’s fresh produce markets.

At the time, together with co-founder Luis Elortondo, Gonzalez was encouraged by what he describes as untapped opportunities for growers in lots of emerging markets, such as the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.

“People were not paying attention to this,” he tells Chris White in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox, “so I just focused there, and relying on technology first we started with email marketing campaigns.”

Operating from a tiny office in Buenos Aires, the universal accessibility of new online platforms was instrumental in the company’s initial expansion. But in contrast with previous advances in global communications like the telephone or fax machine, the internet gave Gonzalez a chance to reach people he didn’t even know existed.

“I started making Google AdWords,” he recalls, a move which was relatively unheard of at the time. Soon, this began to generate “a lot of leads for very little money” from interested parties in places like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Middle East.

Gonzalez goes on to explain how the company, now a major international player with offices in the US, South Africa and Argentina, intends to keep growing in the years to come.

He talks about the importance of people and trust in the business, the challenges of international travel, the pressures of dealing with perishable products, and effect of changing demand in the business.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

David Hughes, known to many as Dr Food, has just been handed a hypothetical shopping trolley stuffed with several billion dollars, then asked where in the food industry he wants to invest the money.

“Where would I put it? High-value horticulture,” he replies. “I would pick the highest value crop that I can find, and one that is coming over the horizon now at pace.”

Listeners to this week’s episode of Fruitbox can discover the single horticultural product that Hughes, Emeritus Professor of Food Marketing at Imperial College London and a renowned food business expert, regards as the most promising.

That revelation comes at the end of a fascinating discussion about the way we eat and drink, focusing on areas relevant to the fresh fruit and vegetable business like health, sustainability, commoditisation, pricing, and the recent dramatic rise in the number of different retail and distribution models.

“The big change, which is not Covid-19 related, is the increasing number of routes to the consumer,” Hughes comments. “In a relatively short period of time, we’ve seen those proliferate. Yes, there’s a supermarket. Yes, you can get it online. You can be a pure-play Ocado, or a multichannel Tesco or Walmart. And then there are meal boxes, for example.”

Companies that would have been beyond our imagination ten years ago – the likes of HelloFresh, DoorDash, or Deliveroo – are rerouting the supply chain, he adds.

“Suddenly that’s another route to the consumer that’s taking market share from traditional retailers. I think that’s the big struggle and the challenge for traditional supermarkets. If they’re not on these new routes, including online, then it’s bye-bye for them I think."

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Even in Asia, a market with a deserved reputation for being at the cutting edge of grocery ecommerce, the past year has seen major advances in the development of this new retail arena.

That’s the view of Ruth McLennan, commercial director for south-east Asia at Dairy Farm, one of Asia’s largest food retailers with annual sales of more than US$12bn.

“Like all markets, the pandemic has brought online to the forefront for both customers and retailers alike,” she tells Chris White in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s weekly conversation series Fruitbox.

“In Asia, the progress is mixed. Some markets have established online businesses and some others are quite new to the arena. Online is very progressed in Hong Kong, China and Singapore, so in some of our other markets, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia, this channel has seen a meteoric rise as customers shift their shopping habits.”

With growth in online grocery shopping as high as 20 per cent in some of those countries, there have been rapid changes to the food retail landscape, McLennan says.

“What’s also interesting is the move from the wet markets to online, as they were closed during the height of the pandemic.”

The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of supply chains, and maintaining supply of the freshest products for customers, she adds.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Shopping for fruit and veg may soon be a whole lot easier if Amazon’s much-heralded ‘just walk out’ technology becomes a common feature of grocery retailing.

The ecommerce giant opened its first (and indeed second) Amazon Fresh store outside North America in London earlier this month. But what are the implications of this new venture for the way we will shop for food in future?

Retail journalist Miya Knights says the difference is primarily about the shoppers themselves. “It takes the labour away from the customer in terms of having to queue, pick your own goods, bag your own goods, scan them in some cases, then pay for them yourself.”

What’s even more revolutionary, she argues, is the technological barrier to entry. “Amazon has kind of said it will pick and choose who it allows into the store, because you have to download the Amazon Fresh app and download a barcode to gain entry. I don’t there are that many retailers who would open a store and then say it’s not open to everybody.”

Knights is director and publisher of Retail Technology magazine, as well as the co-author of Amazon: How the World’s Most Relentless Retailer will Continue to Revolutionize Commerce.

Speaking during the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox, she explains how Amazon will disrupt grocery shopping in the years ahead, forcing existing market players to catch up – either by making real-world retailing a more enjoyable experience, or by further blurring the lines between physical stores and e-commerce.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Despite its name, InFarm’s roots are very much in the market. In February 2021, the Berlin-based urban farming startup announced the creation of new growing centres to supply fresh produce to the likes of Edeka, Lidl and Kaufland.

Starting in Germany and extending very soon to the UK, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, US and Canada, the move represents a step change in its operations, scaling up a business model that until now has focused on smaller, plug-and-grow units within retail stores themselves.

Now, as demand for locally grown produce continues to rise, the company is preparing go beyond the 1,500 in-store farms already installed and ramp up production wherever the market demands it.

And with total venture capital funding of more than US$400m to date, it’s certainly shaping up to be one of the world’s most hotly tipped vertical growing startups.

“We are not building farms,” explains InFarm’s vice-president of corporate sales Daniel Kats, speaking on the latest episode of Fruitbox. “We’re taking facilities and deploying models inside. Those automated towers can then grow by demand. If the retailer has more demand, we just add one or two or ten more towers.”

Why now? “The population is growing, the demand keeps growing, and a lot of food production is needed in many large cities,” says Katz. “Therefore we are pushing the button now and starting to grow.”

Now operating in ten countries, and set to launch in Japan this year, the company is also venturing into new products. As a result, it’s ready to become a major supplier in its own right, rather than simply enabling retailers to grow a limited number of items in stores.

“We are growing much more variety and assortment,” Kats adds. “We started with a lot of leafy greens, herbs, lettuces, mixed salads, microgreens, and now we’re doing the first steps into tomatoes, mushrooms, chillies, strawberries in the future, which require naturally much bigger spaces to grow centrally and distribute to the supermarkets.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Anyone familiar with upmarket British supermarket chain Marks & Spencer might not expect one of its star fruit and veg performers over the past year to be a two-kilo bag of potatoes.

That’s not to say it has stopped innovating at the premium end of the market – something proven by the launch of an easy-peeler grapefruit, or the three million home delivery fruit and veg boxes it sold during the UK’s first lockdown.

but with the pandemic turning received wisdom on its head in the last 12 months, the impressive growth achieved by every single item of fresh produce in the retailer’s value range Remarksable does seem to make sense.

As Lisa Raschia, head of trading in fresh produce, horticulture and frozen at M&S, explains, interest in those value lines and, crucially, demand for simpler products that can be used in home-cooked dishes is notably higher than it was this time last year.

As a result, the company is managing to change perceptions about the kind of service it offers its customers.

“The upside [of the pandemic] is that, in less than 12 months, we’ve achieved some of the hardest bits we were going after, which is really around attracting family shoppers, and attracting more of a large basket shop,” she tells Chris White in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox.

“We’ve always been known more as a prepared and convenience produce retailer,” she says. “But for us, Remarksable has been really strong. It performed brilliantly through lockdown one and we added lines to the range for the September launch. It’s doing fantastically.”

While the Remarksable 2kg potato line may be the biggest success story, with sales up almost 200 per cent on the year, the whole range is performing strongly, says Raschia, with even the worst performer up 25 per cent.

“Clearly there is this trend towards value, towards great quality at a great price,” she adds, “but also clearly scratch cooking, because these are all whole-head produce that people have to do something with. We’ve seen more lunch occasions coming through too – so salads really buoyant, peppers 50 per cent up, salad onions nearly 40 per cent up.”

M&S shoppers are also looking more and more for products thought to help their immunity. “Ginger’s up 100 per cent, we’ve tripled our sales on turmeric, citrus is up 15 per cent on the year but actually in lockdown one the sales level was so extreme that we launched a nutrition campaign called Eat in Colour where we tried to highlight other products on the shelf that were high in Vitamin C or any immunity benefits.”

Raschia goes on to consider other recent trends affecting fresh produce, including the rise of the online retail channel (in which M&S is now heavily involved in partnership with Ocado) and the challenge of having so many of its convenience stores closed.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

During what has been a tumultuous and unpredictable four years for the US politically and socially, it’s fair to say that life in the country’s fresh fruit and vegetable business has been a little less uncertain.

However, as in most parts of the world, the impact of Covid-19 has been considerable. In particular, the closure of foodservice outlets has had a dramatic effect on a market where previously around 35 per cent of the fruit and veg eaten, and about half of all the food, would have been consumed outside of the home.

But with a new president in the White House, and crucially with a new administration in place, it seems an air of renewed optimism could help shape the US produce market to keep growing over the coming years,

For Tom Stenzel, president and chief executive of the Washington DC-based United Fresh Produce Association, recent political events in the city were a watershed for the country’s democracy and also its fresh produce industry.

Witnessed by millions around the world, the Capitol riot on 6 January and Joe Biden’s inauguration exactly two weeks later represented a real turning point in the state of affairs, he suggests.

“It was a momentous event in the history of this country and there is obviously going to be a change,” he tells Chris White in the latest episode of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s weekly series of fresh produce conversations. “President Biden has come in and set a different tone from the very beginning. It was inclusive, reaching out to people who disagree.

The art of disagreement, rather than the art of the deal, has always been more the fresh produce industry’s style, Stenzel suggests. “I think about us in the produce industry. Oh my gosh, buyers and sellers are negotiating, buying and selling every single day. For some reason, our politicians in the United States and many other countries sadly don’t seem to have that skill set that we in the fresh produce industry have.”

He adds: “But I do have that little bit of optimism. I believe President Biden will be reaching out, changing that mood, and re-establishing America’s connections around the world.”

That optimism will be much needed of course as the US produce industry continues to grapple with the pandemic. According to Stenzel, the trade is “functioning pretty well” despite having to contend with a major shift in its supply chains to retail. Spending power is certain to be an issue for more consumers in the near future, but he believes the big lesson of the pandemic for many will be that eating fruit and veg is critical for short and long-term health.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Covid continues to cast a long shadow over the European fresh produce business.

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, trade association Freshfel Europe set about assessing the impact of the crisis on Europe’s fruit and vegetable trade.

Now, after nearly a year of unprecedented disruption to several parts of the produce supply network – from production all the way through to wholesale, retail and foodservice – the financial impact of the crisis is becoming more clear.

Despite strong demand especially through the supermarkets, costs have increased significantly. Freshfel’s early estimate put additional operating costs for the European fresh produce chain at roughly €500m per month, as companies did everything they could to keep fruit and veg growing and flowing through the market.

But now, almost 12 months on, the organisation is looking further ahead, to gauge the pandemic’s longer-term effects. “I think Covid has also started to change consumer behaviour and the sector needs to adapt to that,” says Freshfel’s general delegate Philippe Binard.

Returning to Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s series of fresh produce industry conversations, for his second appearance on the show, Binard discusses how not just Covid but also Brexit. the EU’s Green Deal policy, online retailing, and the buying attitudes of younger consumers are all affecting the fresh produce business in Europe.

He also explains how longer-term concerns over the economy are going to play a far larger role in consumer behaviour in the coming months and years – something which will make consumer marketing campaigns like Freshfel’s own SpeakUp4FruitVeg promotion all the more crucial in building and sustaining demand.

“In the first wave of the pandemic, I think consumers have been keen to look for healthier products,” he recalls. “They were in an environment where they wanted to be reassured, so they were looking for more natural products, more local products, more pre-packed products. And there has been shift in the attitudes of consumers, moving to online shopping also.”

While all of these factors have certainly changed the way consumers shop and the way retailers service that demand, Binard believes the coming months could bring more new trends.

“As we move to the second and third waves, there is another important element which is growing uncertainty about the economic situation,” he says. “People are losing their jobs, and that could have an impact on consumer attitudes. Remember in the first wave everyone was looking for premium, organic products. I think this is over and consumers are looking out much more for [lower] prices.”

He adds: “We will have to see which of these changes will be the short-term reaction, and which will be more permanent in the attitudes of consumers in the longer term.”

Earlier this week, Freshfel Europe and the OECD published the first ever extensive study of fresh produce sold through online vendors, an area of the market that it said had seen considerable growth but also huge variety in terms of methods of distribution, marketing and so on.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

How has Covid-19 changed our attitudes as consumers? And what will happen next as a result?

Two hugely important questions for any company, but especially so for those involved in the fruit and vegetables business, which has seen massive spikes in demands as well as severe shocks to some of its supply chains as a result of the pandemic.

Ben Page, chief executive of leading consumer research firm Ipsos Mori, says he believes the pandemic has massively changed behaviour all over the world, although it remains to be seen how consumer values will be altered in the longer term.

"I think you've got that greater interest in health, which is not surprising in a global pandemic," he tells Fruitnet's Chris White during the latest episode of Fruitnet's conversation series Fruitbox.

"And I think the big thing for many of the brands we work with in the FMCG space is a consumer need for reassurance, familiarity, and security."

In addition, Page explains, there has been a massive rise in the number of people wanting to buy local.

"By which I mean their country market for goods, and certainly rise in national pride in many markets," he comments. "Wanting to know a bit more about provenance – it was a trend that was there before; it seems to have been accelerated."

And finally, largely out of necessity, people are eating at home far more. "Out-of-home eating will be under pressure for some time, to be quite honest," he adds. "And even after we're freed from government lockdowns, a lot of people will still have their income squeezed."

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

To say that Christmas means a great deal for dried fruit and nut suppliers is like saying chocolate companies quite enjoy Easter.

In fact, for Europe’s largest dried fruit and nut company, Importaco, the festive period usually contributes around 40 per cent of its total annual sales.

But as the group’s chief executive Toño Pons explains in the latest edition of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox, the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have sparked even greater demand for these products.

“During the last lockdown, we had some examples of sales increasing 50 per cent, and what we discovered was that customers are much more health-conscious,” he notes. “In 2021, there is an expectation for growth of around 5 per cent in the market for nuts worldwide.”

The fact that nuts and dried fruit are now seen as good alternatives to other less healthy snacks is a very positive thing for Importaco and companies like it.

“Consumers now recognise that nuts are a source of minerals, vitamins, proteins and healthy fats,” Pons adds. “They’re starting to think more and more that nuts are an essential part of a healthy diet. Equally, dried fruit are a very popular choice among kids and sports people.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Raffaele Benedetti thinks grading technology could soon be able to pick out the best fruit according to its nutritional qualities, a development that could open the door to products being marketed on the basis of specific health benefits.

“I think the next step will be in this direction,” he explains in the latest episode of Fruitbox. “The first step was to select for size and colour, then for defects and soft fruit, and now [sugar] and acidity. So why not, nutritional content could be something that the market asks for soon."

Benedetti knows better than most the role that technology has played in boosting fruit sales, and especially for example in the recent phenomenal growth in blueberry sales around the world.

Thanks to hi-tech camera systems like the ones developed by his company Unitec, suppliers are now able to pick out the best fruit according to a range of different considerations, helping them achieve more consistent quality and grow their business as a result.

For now, says Benedetti, the machinery is going a step further and enabling suppliers to grade their fruit according to taste. For the blueberry business, that could be another game-changer. “What this means is they will not find a bad one in with the good ones, or a super-sweet one in with [more] acidic ones,” he explains.

Benedetti suggests that a recent drive towards automation in the field will mean greater demand for technology that can offer better product consistency, “Today, harvesting of blueberries is becoming an issue,” he comments. “In the US, they are focused mainly on mechanical harvesting, so today it’s very difficult to do different harvests on the same plant. Most of the time, they do one harvest with a machine. So it’s very important to differentiate the different sizes and internal quality.”

Benedetti was taking part in this year’s Global Berry Congress, which took place as a virtual event on 10 December. The event attracted more than 550 people from around 45 different countries.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Change is in the air as the UK prepares to cut loose from its trading alliance with the EU. When it comes to banana imports, however, it’s likely to be business as usual from 1 January 2021, even if the country’s importers remain wary of potential disruption to the labour provision and logistical services on which they depend.

“That’s where we’re probably spending most of our time and energy, on making sure that those two things run as smoothly as possible,” says Robert Wells, chief executive of the UK’s biggest banana company SH Pratt, who was speaking in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox. “Those countries that we’re sourcing from have already made individual agreements with the UK government to continue.”

In many respects, the single-variety, low-margin banana trade represents very much the steady ship on a troubled sea as the UK’s fresh produce importers look to steer their business safely over the Brexit cliff-edge and land in calmer waters.

The idea that people are not prepared to pay more for bananas – in marked contrast to berries, the category that has now overtaken bananas as the UK’s most valuable produce category – is one that does not seem to trouble Wells.

“Of course I’d like to see greater value put on bananas and greater value going back to the growers, who have to take the risk every day of the week, every week of the year, to grow bananas in all sorts of challenging conditions,” he says.

“However, we must recognise that bananas are now regarded in the retail world as a staple item, and in the same basket as potatoes, carrots, topfruit and other things that are not really in the same category as berries. I’ve seen the rise of berries, but I don’t think that has detracted from the appeal of bananas.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

The looming possibility of a no-deal Brexit might be a major headache for some in the fresh produce business, but for the commercial director of one of Belgium’s largest fruit exporters it’s uncertainty, rather than the probable impact, that is causing most concern.

In late November, as BFV’s Marc Evrard awaited the outcome of talks between London and Brussels to agree the terms of the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU, he told Fruitbox he remained happy that any Brexit-related bumps in the road would not be insurmountable.

“I think probably the market will still be there,” he commented. “It might be slightly more complicated or more hassle to reach the market. Definitely there are challenges – tariffs or congestion at entry points, for example – but these will not have any effect on the shelf-life of the fruit. So I don’t have any worries there. We can easily deliver one day to the next, and be there just in time.”

That said, could Brexit be about to cloud the UK’s trading landscape. and perhaps nudge a proportion of the group’s sizeable Conference pear deal in the UK, where it sold 28,000 tonnes last year, towards other less troublesome markets? In fact, BFV appears to be especially well prepared for such an eventuality.

“The thing is, at the start of the noughties we were already aware of the fact that we didn’t want to depend too much on one large market as a whole. At that time, we had Russia in mind, so we started working out different scenarios on targeting other markets,” Evrard explains, referring to recent expansion into India, China, Brazil and Mexico.

“Some of these might even have looked utopian, but simultaneously we also targeted markets closer to home, like Spain and Germany. Go back ten yeas and we hardly sold a kilo of Conference pears in the German market. Now we sell roughly 17m kilos there each year.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Investing in Peruvian horticulture is very much a safe bet, despite the political unrest seen in the country over the past couple of weeks.

That’s according to Steve Magami, co-founder and chairman of Agrovision, who was speaking to Chris White in the latest episode of Fruitnet’sweekly conversation series Fruitbox.

Based in Lima and Los Angeles, Agrovision has invested millions of dollars to build up more than 2,000ha of production in Peru – mainly blueberries, but also grapes, asparagus and avocados.

For Magami, the upheaval witnessed in recent days should not be a major cause for concern among those who depend on the country’s agricultural output.

“Volatility in politics is nothing new to Peru, but whoever has been in power over the last few years has been business-friendly, and we don’t see that changing,” he explains.

“Of course, politics gets the headlines, but fundamentally Peru continues its strong growth in industries like agriculture. It’s a vital, strategic sector for the government and the country’s largest employer.”

Peru is the official partner country at Asia Fruit Logistica ON, Asia’s leading fresh produce trade exhibition, which takes place online from 18-20 November, as well as a sponsor of Fruitnet’s conference event Asiafruit Congress ON, which was held on 17 November.

The importance of Asian markets to Peruvian fresh produce companies continues to grow, according to Mario Ocharan, export director of the country’s foreign trade and tourism body PromPerú.

Speaking to Chris White during the latest episode of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s series of conversations about the fresh produce business, Ocharan underlines the growing opportunity that exists for Peruvain fruit and vegetables in various Asian countries.

Next week, Peru is the official partner country at Asia Fruit Logistica ON, Asia’s leading fresh produce trade exhibition, which takes place online from 18-20 November, as well as a sponsor of Fruitnet’s conference event Asiafruit Congress ON, which is on 17 November.

“Asia is one of our priorities in terms of export promotion,” Ocharan comments, noting recent impressive growth in sales to China, South Korea, India and Japan.

That expansion in China has particularly impressive, he explains, with sales now more than US$600m compared with half that figure only three years previously. “So we are expecting to see increasing improvement in the next few years in the relations we have with companies in China and Asia in general,” he adds.

You can sign up Asia Fruit Logistica ON and Asiafruit Congress ON for free by using the discount code: FRUITNET20

Labelling Natoora as the world’s first vertically integrated global greengrocer might not be completely accurate, but for founder and CEO Franco Fubini it’s a description that is not completely wide of the mark.

“We’re not massive fans of the word greengrocer, but I think you’re right,” says Franco Fubini. “We’re trying to build a company that can deliver through very unique and transparent supply chains a level of trust and confidence to consumers around the quality of the fresh produce that they buy, both in terms of flavour and in terms of nutritional density. We feel there is the opportunity and scale to do this across the world.”

In the past decade and a half, Fubini and his colleagues have taken what began as an online farmers market and transformed it into a producer, importer, supplier, distributor, retailer and brand marketer – in short, a vertically integrated fresh produce company that aims to bring its diversity of range, quality and flavour to customers and consumers wherever they need it.

Focusing exclusively on provenance and seasonality, Natoora’s raison d’être has always been to source seasonal products and deliver them to consumers via sustainable supply chains. Staying true to that ethos, the group has been able to carve itself a niche at the very top end of the market. “It fits a growing need,” Fubini explains during his conversation with Fruitbox host Chris White. “There’s a consumer out there that is looking for something of higher flavour, particularly when it comes to fruits.”

The success of that approach over the past decade and a half has seen the company set up operations in New York, Paris, Barcelona, Los Angeles and London, where it has five of its own upmarket greengrocer outlets. Now there is talk of further expansion for the firm in places like Tokyo too. Plus, it has also managed to convince retailers like Waitrose, Whole Foods and Ocado to stock its branded products. No mean feat for a fresh produce company with its origins firmly rooted in the wholesale trade.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Linda Carobbi has witnessed first-hand the huge impact that the Covid crisis has had on the fresh produce business. As corporate director for fresh fruit at Savino Del Bene, the logistics and supply chain specialist based in Florence, Italy, she says has seen a dramatic shift in the way supply lines are managed and the technologies being used.

With capacity tightening and costs rising, the whole business of shipping fruit and veg from point A to point B has become more complicated, more challenging and more costly than ever before.

“There is no doubt that Covid had an impact in the entire global supply chain [that was] maybe never seen before,” she tells Fruitnet’s Chris White in the latest episode of Fruitbox. “It could be negative or positive, depending on the viewpoint, but for sure it was, and is, challenging.”

For Carobbi, the key word appears to be acceleration. Trends that were bubbling under before the pandemic, like a move to online ordering, have been far more pronounced. Similarly, the uptake of new methods of distribution – for example, this involving advanced systems like blockchain – appear to have been fast-tracked by the crisis.

“Covid-19 for sure favoured this digital transformation,” she explains. “Digitalisation has been identified as a tool to improve and facilitate accessibility to ports and terminals, to avoid long queues of trucks waiting to enter or go out from the terminal.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Mike Port is the chief executive of Port International, the Hamburg-based importer which recently took up the challenge of tackling climate change. Tomorrow marks exactly one year since the company started marketing CO2-neutral bananas under a new brand called Be Climate, a move that Port believes brings new value to a product that is renowned for its slim margins and frequently used as a weapon of choice among retailers engaging in price wars.

“Every Be Climate banana has a QR code, so the consumers with their mobile phones can find out very easily that, by buying one kilo of bananas, they have compensated 940g of CO2,” he explains during the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox. “But it’s not only showing them how much CO2 they balance. It also shows in a very transparent way what they have done with it.”

Port accepts that no single company can fight climate change on its own. “We cannot do everything but we have made a start, showing consumers and our partners that we have projects where we reduce emissions and for the rest we are balancing by investing in offset projects,” he argues.

So are retailers changing their attitude to the banana market? Are they buying into the idea of the fruit’s potential added value? The answer, says Port, is certainly not all of them, although he notes that Belgian supermarket chain Delhaize recently replaced its premium range with Be Climate and subsequently sold more bananas under the brand.

“Covid hasn’t helped,” he admits. “I see a tendency towards the race to the bottom and who has the most competitive bananas on the shelf, because consumers obviously are quite sensitive and they like to buy cheap bananas. In the future, they are afraid about what’s going to happen. So unfortunately the price fighter will [still] play a role. However, I believe that there will also be a lot of consumers who will focus on values and who are prepared to pay for quality, organics, fair trade and also lately for stopping climate change.”

The important lesson, he notes, is to build a narrative around the value you are trying to secure. “If you can put a story behind a brand, or a special quality, or a new variety, then there will be consumers and supermarkets giving you a chance with this product, because it sells.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

David Alba is a firm believer in the value of innovation as a driver of new business. As director of Valencia-based Genesis Innovation Group, a division of leading Spanish fresh produce business AM Fresh, he spearheads the company’s development of new citrus varieties, helping it to introduce even better types of fruit that will ensure the value of what it offers the market continues to grow.

“We wanted to go all the way from seed to shelf,” he explains in the latest episode of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s weekly series of conversations about the international fresh fruit and vegetable business. “So not only do we grow, pick and pack citrus for our customers, now we also develop our own varieties to complete the whole cycle.”

So what kind of new citrus varieties are needed for today’s customers? “Nowadays the market drivers are far more sophisticated than before. Flavour and colour are still very important quality attributes, of course, but consumer demands are also focused on things like shape, size, peelability, seedlessness, juice content, texture, the whole eating experience,” Alba tells Fruitbox host Chris White. “And there also important points like shelflife, healthy attributes and nutritional content, whether the fruit has been grown according to the right ethical and environmental standards.”

During the episode, Alba goes on to discuss various topics, including the potential for developing more customised products, balancing the needs of growers with commercial imperatives, making citrus production more sustainable, and combating the global coronavirus pandemic.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

John Hey knows the Asian fresh produce market almost like the back of his hand. As editorial director for Fruitnet in Asia, he’s seen some major changes to the way the market – or that collection of extremely varied markets – works, particularly in the past six months as a result of the Covid-19 crisis.

“The pandemic has really been a catalyst for change in shopping behaviour,” he tells Chris White during the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox. “Wet markets have been heavily impacted by Covid restrictions, like social distancing and shorter operating hours, and some consumers have stayed away due to hygiene and food safety fears.”

Modern retail formats like supermarkets have certainly benefited from that shift, but Hey believes the most significant growth is elsewhere. “The headline trend we’ve seen is online and digital channels growing their share of fresh produce sales,” he notes. “Pre-pandemic, China was already blazing a trail in the digitalisation of food retail with the integration of online and offline, but Covid has really accelerated the trend there.”

Plus there have been other interesting developments in other parts of the supply chain, including producers and importers developing their own innovative and ingenious ways of reaching consumers. “That’s a trend I think that we will likely see grow.”

During this specially extended episode of Fruitbox, Hey takes us through a whistlestop tour of Asian markets, summing up the various trends, challenges and opportunities that exist for fresh fruit and vegetable suppliers and buyers.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

The first day of October 2020 was a busy and exciting one for Mike Browne, chief operating officer at Mission Produce. The company made history by listing on US stock exchange the Nasdaq, with an initial public offering aimed at raising a potential US$100m. And as more and more markets open to an increasing number of suppliers around the world, the prospects for those investors who buy into what some regard as green gold seem especially strong.

In episode 40 of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s Chris White talks to Browne about what the IPO means for Mission itself and for the avocado business as a whole. “It gives Mission a lot of opportunity to do more of what we already do,” Browne comments. “As a leader in the business, we’re laser-focused on fresh avocados. We’re going to continue to innovate, and continue to find ways to get the freshest, most wholesome avocados ripened correctly and to consumers.”

For Browne and his colleagues, receiving an injection of investment backing will give the company even more capacity to explore new commercial avenues faster – for example opening new markets or developing new sources of supply. “It’s going to give us a lot of flexibility to grow the company, to have more elasticity within the company, to have a responsible balance sheet, and to continue doing what we’ve done – to innovate not only in the distribution but also in the farming and vertically integrate,” says Browne. “We’re one of the largest growers of avocados in the world and we’re going to continue to grow more globally.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

In the latest edition of Fruitbox, host Chris White speaks to Mike Knowles, editorial director for Europe at Fruitnet Media, and to Maura Maxwell, Fruitnet’s Latin America and Spain editor, about the ongoing challenges faced by the European fresh fruit and veg business as a result of the Covid crisis.

You may recall that Mike and Maura were the first ever guests on episode one of Fruitbox, which launched as a new format just as Europe was coming to terms with the full implications of the pandemic.

Having reported back then on some startling new features emerging in the retail and foodservice markets, this time they look forward and consider the longer-term implications for fresh produce suppliers and marketers as a result of trends such as online ordering, home delivery, meal kits and box schemes, and the continued depression in out-of-home eating.

They also give their take on what the changing market dynamics will mean further down the line for key fruit and veg suppliers across Europe. Demand has been high over the past six months but there are indications that the inevitable global recession is already beginning to bite, with worrying signs of less commercial breathing space for things like new product development, consumer engagement and value-added items at the top end of the market.

And then of course there’s Brexit…

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

David Marguleas is chief executive officer of Sun World International, a leading developer of new table grape and stonefruit varieties based in California, US.

With a portfolio of premium varieties now being grown in an increasing number of new places around the globe, the enormous opportunities emerging for the group in terms of those products’ considerable market potential are, Marguleas admits, accompanied by major new challenges on the production side.

Chief among those challenges is labour, be it the cost or indeed availability of workers to harvest and handle the fruit. “We’ve been struggling on these issues of availability of labour as well as increasing labour costs – particularly on these highly labour-intensive crops, like grapes, berries and stonefruit that are so dependent on the timely availability of people to harvest and produce them,” Marguleas explains. “But also the increasing cost in a number of places like the US, southern Europe and Australia, where the cost of these crops and actually getting them off the tree or the vine in a timely manner and into a coldstorage facility and through the supply chain is increasingly prohibitive.”

For Marguleas, one important response has to be to invest in more advanced technology. “In particular, we think [there is a] need for more significant automation – not just in the packhouses but certainly in the fields – and looking at robotic harvesting capabilities for many of these labour-intensive and perishable crops,” he tells Fruitbox host Chris White. “So we’re excited about expansion not only of new growing locations but also new technologies that enable that and also new varieties that allow for the production of varieties that previously couldn’t be grown in some areas.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes every week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Dr Manuel Madrid has worked for some of the biggest businesses in the fresh produce industry – Syngenta, Driscoll’s, SanLucar and Chiquita to name four giants of the trade – but for more than a decade now he has been running his own consultancy, Fruit Profits.

Now, as he reveals in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox, he’s preparing to relocate from Valencia in Spain to a new base in Costa Rica, from where he will work with a number of fruit companies to help them grow and improve their business.

Top of his list, especially for those banana and pineapple companies in the region that face rising costs and diminishing returns, will be to help them identify new ways to secure more value in their supply chains – by introducing better techniques and technology, by switching from traditional crops to higher-value items like mangoes, papayas, avocados or berries, or perhaps even by exploring new markets in other parts of the world.

“I think we need to change the model for agriculture and change it to [be] much less dependent on inputs and more sustainable, which is also going to be less costly to produce,” he tells Fruitbox host Chris White. “That would be a win-win on the economic and sustainability side.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Andriy Yarmak, economist at the United Nations FAO Investment Centre, spends a large part of his time monitoring developments in central Asia’s fresh produce business.

As Yarmak explains in the latest episode of Fruitbox, recent developments in countries like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan reflect a growing interest in the region as a potentially global source of fruits and vegetables.

Last year, for example, German buyers purchased fresh table grapes and persimmons from this part of the world, while the UK took a small but significant volume of sweet cherries from Uzbekistan.

China too is actively looking to source more from central Asia, Yarmak notes, and even though Russia remains the dominant buyer in the region, it’s clear that these countries are going to play a bigger role in the international fruit and veg market in years to come.

“They’re important because they are among the top global players already, and many people don’t realise it,” Yarmak tells Fruitnet’s Chris White. “Uzbekistan stands out. It’s already among the largest producers of many different types of fruit and vegetable. For example, it’s the second-largest exporter of raisins in the world, the second-largest exporter of apricots in the world, and the third-largest global exporter of fresh apricots.”

What’s more, the quality and taste of products being grown in central Asia is “just amazing”, he adds. “They have a unique, very dry climate with a lot of sunny days, and it’s really hot in summer. But it’s also pretty cold in winter. I would compare Uzbekistan with Chile in some ways. It’s fairly remote from consumers, but it can reach them with a variety of products.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Ksenia Gorovaya, managing director of St Petersburg-based Crisp Consulting, was in the eye of the storm in the summer of 2014, when Russia decided to ban a range of food imports – including fresh fruit and vegetables – from the EU, US, Australia, Norway and Canada.

Six years on, with the blockade still very much in place, she talks to Chris White about the ongoing impact of that decision on the country’s fresh produce import business, part of which has refocused on the former Soviet republics as well as places like Iran, and also on its local, domestic supply.

“Russia still imports quite a lot, but crops that can be grown locally are gaining more share on retail shelves,” she reveals in the latest episode of Fruitbox. “For example sufficiency for potato production is close to 95 per cent.”

Russia’s self-sufficiency in the commercial tomato sector, she adds, expanded from 25 per cent to 50 per cent. Within the past five years, about 1,000ha of greenhouses were launched both by the governmental and private investments, while retailers themselves have been investing in their own production.

“Magnit now aims to produce up to one-third of their tomato assortment in their own greenhouse facilities, which is an example of how rapidly it is going,” Gorovaya points out.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Uri Krieger’s roots go deep when it comes to developing new types of vegetable. Recently appointed as global head of vegetables and flowers R&D at Syngenta, he says he’s determined to use his background in plant breeding to overcome public scepticism about genetics and, even more crucially, to help growers produce more and better crops with greater efficiency.

“By 2050, the world population will be around 30 per cent higher, at about 10bn, so demand for food is expected to grow,” Krieger tells Fruitnet's Chris White in the latest edition of Fruitbox. “We’re going to have many more people and increased consumption.”

At the same time, producers need to know that the vegetables they grow in future can cope with changes in climate, he insists. “We have to find ways to grow our food more efficiently, [because] at the same time the amount of resources available, like water and soil, have either stayed flat or in some cases have been reduced.”

He adds: “Our challenge as an industry is to find a sustainable solution, to grow much more with far less.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Episode 32 of Fruitbox is sponsored by Syngenta Vegetable Seeds.

Phil Lempert believes many supermarkets were selling fresh fruit and vegetables wrong even before the coronavirus pandemic began. Now, with the crisis causing dramatic changes to the entire food distribution business, he thinks a radical overhaul of the supermarket format is coming, while foodservice outlets could see new opportunities to offer consumers an attractive alternative place to buy their fresh produce.

Lempert certainly knows a thing or two about what makes supermarkets tick, not to mention where they need to improve. Known to many as the SupermarketGuru, he makes regular appearances talking about grocery trends on CNN, NBC, ABC, Fox News and even the Oprah Winfrey show.

Speaking to Chris White in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox, Lempert casts a critical eye over supermarket fresh produce departments, explains where they can improve, and considers what the supermarket of the future will look like.

He also comments on the rise and predicted fall of retail’s answer to foodservice the groceraunt, the apparent arrival of a new distribution channel in the form of the so-called restaumart, the expansion of e-commerce and discount retailing, an expected increase in the popularity of scratch cooking, and the great upheaval being seen in the restaurant business as a result of Covid-19.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Barbara Bray MBE, a nutritionist and food safety consultant, noticed something strange going on as the coronavirus crisis began to take hold in Europe. Google data showed that searches for the words immunity and veg were much higher than usual.

In the latest episode of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s series of conversations about the fresh fruit and vegetable business, Bray joins host Chris White to discuss the potential lasting effects of lockdown and the pandemic on our diets.

As consumers, for example, are we eating more healthy products, more unhealthy snack products, or in fact both? And what happens in the longer term if, as expected, spending power decreases? How accessible will healthy eating be for the estimated 820m people worldwide who are already undernourished or the two billion adults around the globe who are reckoned to be obese? And could concerns over future food supply cause ripples of tension in domestic politics or international trade?

“Before the pandemic we ate out a lot and ate a lot food on the go, so we weren’t really putting together meals that were well balanced. More people have had time to do that now, so we’re starting to reap the benefits of that,” Bray comments.

“The only problem is that, once we’re into that post-pandemic world, if we pick up our old routines we could slip back into old habits and start to lose some of those qualities we picked up about preparing healthy, balanced meals. I really hope there is a lot of drift into eating more fruits and vegetables., but I guess it’s inevitable there will be some slowdown.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

As the coronavirus outbreak pushes the world towards a very different kind of recession, Joe Shaw Roberts of consumer research company Kantar looks at how consumers are responding to the crisis and considers what lasting impact it is having on the way people buy fresh fruit and vegetables.

Speaking on the latest episode of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s series of fresh produce industry conversations, Shaw Roberts explains how the pandemic is reshaping the market and driving important consumer trends to do with health, convenience, organics, local sourcing, discounting, online shopping and home delivery services.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Matt Hancock and Will Wolmer both see huge opportunities to grow the market for cherries.

The managing directors respectively of British cherry importer and distributor Norton Folgate and Hampshire-based producer Blackmoor Estate speak to Chris White during the latest episode of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox.

They admit that achieving the potential growth they can see ahead will depend on them effectively managing one of the most volatile product categories in the fresh produce business, as well as finding a way to have fruit in the market all year round.

Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

José Antonio Gómez, managing director of Peruvian company Camposol, is overseeing a significant transformation, one that could offer inspiration for other fresh produce suppliers hoping to future-proof their own business.

As supermarkets look for even more dependable and more efficient procurement of fresh fruit and vegetables, Camposol is expanding its supply base beyond Peru so it can provide customers with year-round supply of key items like avocados and blueberries from multiple sources.

“Most supermarkets that we serve are looking for a supplier [to which] they can assign a distribution centre year round and forget about looking for other suppliers. It comes really from them,” he explains in the latest episode of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s bi-weekly conversation series.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Tonie Fuchs is a firm believer in the power of premium. As managing director of South Africa’s Capespan Group, he says a commitment to top-quality products and the best levels of service is the right way forward as the company attempts to sustain growth in fruit markets all across the world.

“We want to be important to a few customers and not just go and dump volumes of produce in those markets, because we’ve also seen how quickly those markets can turn against you when an industry and a certain supply region just goes and dumps a load of product into those markets,” Fuchs comments in the episode of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s series of conversations with fresh produce industry leaders.

“For us it’s [about] very selective, premium customers with whom we can build a long-term relationship from multiple supply regions in a wider basket of fruit.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Jan Doldersum, chain and retail manager at Dutch vegetable breeding and seed production company Rijk Zwaan, believes the concept of local is increasingly resonating with consumers.

That’s not just because more of them want to eat fresh produce that has been produced a shorter distance away, but also because buying those items from somewhere closer to home, or having them delivered along a shorter distribution chain, has become more convenient and therefore more appealing.

It’s a trend that was already in motion prior to the coronavirus outbreak, he says, but one that has also been accelerated by the pandemic.

“In countries like Germany, UK, Switzerland and Austria we already saw before the corona crisis a trend towards more domestic production,” Doldersum tells Fruitnet’s Chris White in the latest episode of the conversation series Fruitbox. “This of course has a huge impact for export countries like Holland and Spain.”

During the interview, Doldersum discusses the impact of coronavirus on the vegetable market, as well as the potential for lasting and permanent change in the global vegetable supply chain.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Chris Groot is produce chain manager at breeding company Enza Zaden, one of only a handful of companies around the world that is developing the vegetables of tomorrow.

As he explains in the latest edition of Fruitbox, Fruitnet’s series of conversations with leading members of the international fresh produce business, the outlook for these companies looks bright, especially with more and more consumers seeking out healthier and more nutritious diets.

However, there are major challenges too in creating new products to satisfy that demand. In particular, developing new varieties that meet the requirements of consumers, retailers and growers alike means the whole process is far more complicated these days.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Alk Brand is the chief executive officer of South African company Westfalia, the world’s largest avocado grower and a major supplier of several different kinds of fresh fruit.

Giving his first interview in his new role, Alk talks exclusively to Fruitnet’s Chris White about the recent spike in sales of avocados, the company’s plans to expand its production worldwide, the potential for further growth in demand as consumer interest in healthy eating rises, and the need to keep improving when it comes to environmental sustainability and ethical sourcing.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Monica Bratuti of New Zealand-owned fresh produce marketing business Turners International explains how avocados’ versatility, combined with a relative lack of market penetration in some of the world’s major consumer markets, means there is still ample room for growth in sales worldwide.

“It’s not only that it’s a healthy fruit, but it’s also a very generous fruit that allows you to never stop learning new ways to eat it or drink it or use it,” she comments in the latest episode of Fruitbox.

When it comes to potential market growth, she says, future expansion for the avocado category will definitely be seen in parts of Asia, Europe and the Middle East. But there are some clouds on the horizon, not least because of apparent oversupply at certain times of the year.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Tarun Arora, director of Mumbai-based importer IG International, is certain that establishing the right kind of logistic network over the past five decades has enabled the company to achieve “outstanding” growth in a market as enormous and daunting as India. Now, the company is investing in local production of emerging products like blueberries as well as ramping up its ecommerce business with the launch of a new ordering app.

In the latest episode of Fruitnet’s interview series Fruitbox, Arora explains how a company that is marking its 50th anniversary this year is managing to remain at the cutting edge of consumer and retail trends.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Julie Escobar, co-founder of industry association Global Women Fresh, believes the entire fresh produce business has a vital role to play in creating better opportunities for women across the world.

Speaking in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s interview series Fruitbox, Escobar talks about the organisation’s ambitious plans to inspire and empower women during the months and years ahead.

Established in 2019 to connect, inspire and empower women in the fresh produce business worldwide. the organisation is now working with the United Nations to empower 3m women, mainly in under-developed economies of Africa and Asia, by 2021.

A recent project established in Kenya, for example, as part of the International Trade Centre’s SheTrades initiative is helping female entrepreneurs develop production and exports of fresh avocados. 

“So far we have provided one-on-one business coaching to more than 50 small businesses in Africa,” Escobar reveals. “We also just completed a set of webinars where we educated 200 women on global supply chain, global marketing, leadership strategy and how to navigate through the difficult times of Covid.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Todd Fryhover, president of the Washington Apple Commission, is ready to lead a major marketing push for the United States’ largest apple export deal having secured a 50 per cent increase in the group’s annual promotional budget from US$8m to $12m.

Speaking in the latest edition of Fruitnet’s interview series Fruitbox, Fryhover predicts that, during the next 12 months, producers will continue to ramp up production of new varieties and will also keep targeting a number of promising international markets.

He also talks about the meteoric rise of new variety Cosmic Crisp, as well as commenting on plans to sell more in markets like China, Vietnam and Indonesia, challenges associated with trade disputes and coronavirus, and the need to use social media more in order to reach consumers.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Soren Bjorn, president of leading berry brand Driscoll’s, believes the development of year-round supply in the soft category offers important lessons for everyone in the fresh fruit and vegetable business.

Speaking in the latest episode of Fruitnet’s interview series Fruitbox, Bjorn explains how the berry category has not only benefited from being right on trend as far as flavour, health and convenience are concerned, but has generally succeeded in offering the right quality all through the year, rather than only in peak seasons.

That lack of quality is not always evident in other categories, notably stonefruit, he argues.

"A lot of times, the first thing a consumer tries is those really early peaches from somewhere where you really shouldn't grow peaches and that just don't taste of anything,” he comments. “And by the time you get to the really good peaches in the middle of summer, the consumers have already left the category. I think the berry category has generally done a better job.”

That’s not to say the soft fruit industry itself doesn’t face its own challenges in terms of guaranteeing quality. As Bjorn points out, recent dramatic growth in sales of blueberries has led to some lower-quality fruit being produced in countries including Peru and Spain.

“The advantage is that most growers made quite a bit of money, so they have the cash to reinvest in the genetics and upgrade the genetics pretty quickly,” he comments. “But that’s what they will need to do, because they general offer that’s there today, it will just not be competitive in three or four years.”

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Filip Fontaine, managing director of Belgian food marketing body Vlam, discusses the future of food and the major impact the recent coronavirus crisis has had – especially on the restaurant business.

Although the lifting of lockdown restrictions should see a return to out-of-home dining, he believes, he also says it will be harder for the traditional restaurant business to continue in its previous form.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

For one of India's leading fresh fruit and vegetable exporters, new challenges presented by the global coronavirus outbreak in terms of airfreight availability have forced it to re-evaluate its business model and turn to new ideas closer to home.

As Kaushal Khakhar, chief executive of Mumbai-based Kay Bee Exports, explains in the latest edition of Fruitbox, the company has turned its attention to a new B2C concept called Mango First, bringing some of India's finest fresh mangoes direct to customers' front doors.

And even though consolidation in the market for airfreighted products into Europe has seen a reduction in its export volume, margins are slightly better on the fruit and veg that is still making its way to customers overseas, which might make for a more profitable business in the longer term.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

If food waste was a country, it would be the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and with around one-third of the food produced around the world thrown away rather than being consumed, consumers and retailers are becoming far more aware of the need to prevent that waste.

In the fruit and vegetable business too, reducing waste is more crucial than ever, especially at a time when the coronavirus crisis has highlighted not only the need to get more fresh produce to disadvantaged people in society, but also the need for everyone in general to eat healthily.

Oddbox, a box delivery scheme that started in London and is now preparing to expand across the UK and into Europe, has established a thriving business rescuing fresh and seasonal fruit and veg that would otherwise go to waste – either because they don't meet market specifications in terms of size, shape or colour, or simply because they are surplus to requirements.

In the latest edition of Fruitbox, the company's co-founder Emilie Vanpoperinghe explains how the model works, why she thinks a shift to this kind of online, direct-to-consumer supply model is here to stay, and why the box delivery model is proving increasingly popular with consumers who want to balance value with values by buying more seasonal fruit and veg.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

New Zealand might appear far away from the action when it comes to business, markets and consumers, but the country’s hugely successful kiwifruit brand Zespri has managed to make itself a central feature of the global fresh produce business in spite of that remoteness. Now more than ever, it seems, the recently relaunched brand is bringing a message of health to consumers all across the globe.

Speaking exclusively to Fruitbox, chief executive Dan Mathieson explains how the company’s links with an international supply base have given it a head start in tackling coronavirus, and how it has been able to refocus its healthy eating message around Vitamin C to online shoppers.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

When it comes to buying fresh fruit and vegetables, how has consumer behaviour changed in the past few months? As marketing manager of South Tyrolean company Vog, Europe’s largest apple producer, Hannes Tauber spends much of his time researching consumer purchasing patterns in order to understand what’s going on in the market, finding out what consumers want and identifying where the next commercial opportunities might lie.

In the latest episode of Fruitnet's interview show Fruitbox, Hannes discusses how the recent coronavirus crisis has changed the way people shop and reshaped their attitudes to products like apples. He also explains how fruit and veg brand marketers must react in order to preserve their close links with those consumers, offering some examples of what Vog has done with its own brand Marlene.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox now attracts a big audience across the global fruit and vegetable business that tunes in twice a week to hear exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Dragons’ Den star Shawn Harris knows the value of innovation to the fresh fruit and veg industry. Having established Nature’s Pride and turned it into the world’s largest importer of avocados, she recently set up Orange Wings, a startup accelerator for promising new businesses.

As Harris explains in Episode 13 of Fruitbox, there is still plenty of room for improvement through innovation in industries like fresh produce, which is one of the reasons Orange Wings is now supporting startup companies around the world.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox was launched in March 2020. Already, a few thousand listeners from across the global fruit and vegetable business are tuning in twice a week to hear its exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Coronavirus has changed a lot of things, but according to Rewe Group's director of fruit and vegetable category management Stephan Weist, there won't be any dramatic, long-lasting changes to the way people buy fresh produce. Instead, he believes the real constant before, during and after the crisis will prove to be the enduring value of good relationships with suppliers.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox was launched in March 2020. Already, a few thousand listeners from across the global fruit and vegetable business are tuning in twice a week to hear its exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

When the government lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic forced the closure of UK restaurants, most of Reynolds' fresh produce supply business vanished overnight. But as managing director Tony Reynolds explains, the company has adapted, survived and even improved by taking swift and decisive action, expanding its home delivery service network to meet new consumer demand in a new part of the market.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox was launched in March 2020. Already, a few thousand listeners from across the global fruit and vegetable business are tuning in twice a week to hear its exclusive interviews and expert analysis.

Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Barbara Galli, global marketing and communication lead at Chiquita Brands International, explains how one of the world's top consumer brands has managed to repurpose a major marketing campaign and adjust its advertising spend in order to maintain its connection with consumers during the coronavirus crisis.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox was launched in March 2020. Already, thousands of listeners from across the global fruit and vegetable business are tuning in twice a week to hear its keynote interviews and expert analysis. Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.

Disruptions, delays and a shortage of containers are creating new challenges for international fresh produce suppliers around the world, as leading logistics expert Ole Schack Petersen explains in the latest episode of Fruitbox.

Hosted by Chris White in London, Fruitbox was launched in March 2020 and, already, thousands of listeners from across the global fruit and vegetable business are tuning in twice a week to hear its keynote interviews and expert analysis. Produced by Fruitnet Media International, the show is essential listening for everyone in the fresh produce industry.