Mateo García, commercial manager of Agrícola La Palma, sees this as the great future challenge for the Chilean industry, stressing that there are good local references.
A team from Agrícola La Palma, an exporter associated with Chileprunes, was recently in China visiting its current clients and, eventually, some new ones that could be established in the short term.
“We see how important the Chinese market is for Chilean fruit and in particular for the D’Agen Plum, both dehydrated and fresh. Therefore, we believe it is very important to visit this market to see in person what is happening,” says Mateo García, commercial manager at La Palma Export.
The Chinese cities visited were Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzen and Hong Kong, which together have tens of millions of inhabitants, who in a high percentage are looking for a healthier diet, which is precisely what prunes provide.
“La Palma is a new exporter in the business. This is only our second year; for that reason, we are in a stage of team formation and learning. And from that point of view, I think it has been a very good year. With many challenges and goals to conquer in all areas,” adds the executive.
One of those goals is, precisely, to reach this year the volume of exporting 1 million kilos of prunes to various international markets, where Poland, Holland, England, Mexico and Italy stand out, among others. 80% of Agrícola La Palma’s exports correspond to this fruit.
In addition, he adds, as an exporter, a new agricultural company joined us this year with part of its fruit, “so we hope that the results will accompany us so that this project continues to grow.”
In La Palma’s opinion, how have the international markets for fresh plums and prunes behaved?
In the fresh sector, we were able to close reasonable contracts, but we know that the business was not as expected. Even so, we believe that there is still room for improvement in the consistency of the product that is sent with respect to what Chinese consumers expect.
As for dehydrated products, 2024 will be reasonable, although it will not be as good as the last two years.
At La Palma, how do you see the Indian market?
We consider it a strategic market for the future of the business. Hopefully, the steps of walnuts will be followed, where growth has been sustained. I think that the marketing campaigns, led by Chilenut in walnuts and now by Chileprunes in prunes, always supported by ProChile, have been key. We are very optimistic about that.
What are the major challenges for the Chilean prunes industry globally, for the remainder of 2024 and for 2025?
I think it is consolidating itself as a stable supplier of quality. It is already known that as a market we have a good volume that is consistently repeated. The challenge in our opinion is that this product is of good quality at the industry level. There are companies in Chile that have been doing well for several years now and that are a good reference for how things should be done in the country.
Agrícola la Palma has 400 hectares of production located in the Colchagua Valley, VI Region, an area where 60% of the European plum present in Chile is grown. It is a single property, where, of the 400 hectares, 240 are for plums, and the rest is divided between Murcott mandarins, olives, corn and wheat.
Its first exports of prunes were made in 2021, doing so directly and indirectly through other processors.
