Main results of “EXPO Ciruelas Secas – 2025 (EXPO Prunes – 2025).
With a large attendance of producers, processers and exporters, among other actors of the market, this Wednesday, March the 19th took place the 12th Expo Prunes at Monticello Conference Center, VI Region and coincided with the 20 anniversary of the Asociación Gremial de Procesadores y Exportadores de Ciruelas Deshidratadas de Chile (Professional Association of Processers and Exporters of Prunes), Chileprunes, which was hosting this big meeting of the Chilean prune industry that, today, is the main world exporter of this fruit.
The common thread of the event was the attributes the prune needs to assert itself in the markets. “Never before we have been closer to the final consumer and this is related to the unequivocal, unbreakable commitment with the quality of our product”, emphasized Chileprunes’s president, Pedro Pablo Díaz during his welcome speech to the attendants.
This message was corroborated by Antonio Walker, president of the Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura (National Society of Agriculture), who, from the country’s point of view, emphasized that Chile must become an eco-food power.
“We want to make a difference from the rest of the world in the way we produce more than in how much we produce”, said the president. But this entails “having a more consistent quality as a condition to have a more homogeneous product nor only standing out for the quality and condition of the fruit but also for the flavor it has”, he emphasized.
Pedro Pablo Díaz valued the kind of agriculture we are carrying out and the good results gotten in agronomical terms highlighting that it is the result of a continuous effort of the industry. “I do not know any Chileprunes associated company that is not, nowadays, investing in their productive plants; they are aware that the future of our sector is having a product designed for the consumer’s palate”, he said.
He also pointed that the Chilean prune, besides gaining space in destinies as India, is soon going to be present in other markets. “We are talking about Indonesia in the very short term”.
On the other hand, the director of the Oficina de estudios y políticas Agrarias, ODEPA (Office for Agricultural Studies and Policies) Andrea García, narrowed down that in an increasingly volatile world the public-private work of the sector must be strengthened promoting a sustainable export agenda. “With Chileprunes we have had a very successful agenda for many years in the creation of sustainability standards in environmental, economic and social areas; we have worked together to produce with more fairness and better sustainability”, she said.
For its part, the director of ProChile, Lorena Sepúlveda, pointed out that the Chilean prune was commercialized in 78 destinations in Europe, Asia and North America totalizing exports for more than US$ 250 millions. “This is an example of diversification and a big lesson on not to put all eggs in one basket. This sector has made its own our invitation, as ProChile, to send our products to more markets, thus generating more opportunities”, she highlighted.
Another example of public-private effort carried out to put the Chilean prune in the world is the project to create a certification of sustainability of the product. The executive director of Chileprunes, Pedro Acuña revealed the scopes of this initiative promoted within the framework of the program Chile Origen Consciente and (Chile Conscientious Origin) developed together with the Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación Agrícola, IICA, (Interamerican Institute for Agricultural Cooperation) and the Agencia de Sustentabilidad y Cambio Climático, ASCC, (Agency for Sustainability and Climate Change) and Odepa.
“The way was very collaborative. We made a diagram of the actors, more than 600, counting the producers, processers, exporters and other important institutions. We formed several working committees and an articulated governance that allowed us to advance in executive and technical themes”, he explained.
Perception of what is quality
Nonetheless, despite the advances there are a lot of challenges. One of them is the harsh competition from the producers united at the California Prune Board, theme addressed by Sebastián Valdés, director of family and agro-industrial companies; he highlighted that the California prune often gets 40% price premium thanks to a strategy focused in improving the quality of the fruit, specially the calibers, prioritizing the added value over the natural product and investing much more in promotion than their adversaries.
He mentioned, as well, that the United States is tackling markets where the final consumers have higher income such as Great Britain, Canada, Italy or Japan.
“A consumer will pay more for a product that is perceived as better, even though it may not really be so. This is the key of the matter; using adequate promotion the consumer, facing two exact products, will pay more if he perceives one as better than the other”, said Valdés.
The director of SENADUCA and quality assurance consultant Claudia Pinochet accounted for the technical variables that will allow to reach a final product that will conquer the markets saying that the first step is agree on what is understood by quality.
“It is a safe product, that is to say it does not harm or produce illnesses to the consumer, it complies with what was promised to the customer from the nutritional and sensory point of view”, said the expert.
“Some details that seem insignificant must be improved; sometimes we go from one point to the other and we forget the intermediate steps and that gets us into trouble”, she added, highlighting then that if a customer was promised a sweet prune he cannot receive a tasteless fruit. “To avoid this is quality”, Pinochet declared.
And as it was expected, at the event the main statistic data of the 2024 season and the projections for 2025 were made known; this was in charge of Juan Pablo Sotomayor, Frutexa production manager. During his speech, he said the production estimates for this year could be around 100,000 tons; 14% will be destined to fresh product and the rest, more or less 86,000 tons will be available for prunes.
Innovation and new markets
EXPO prunes 2025 included the participation of Sumit Saran, director of SS Associates, consulting and marketing food company specialized in launching foreign foods in India; he is in charge of promoting prunes, activity led by Chileprunes since 2024. The executive spoke about the opportunities India offers for the prune aiming at the fact that India has 1,400 million inhabitants, even though, he said “that is not the target. The target is about 300 million consumers who are the growing middle class”.
“India is not a country, it is a continent with an economy strong and resilient to the ups and downs of global economy made up by a high income and very connected young population that feels part of the global village”, he described adding that after the pandemic a great demand for healthy snacks has been observed.
“This is why the more we educate about prunes and its benefits the bigger the demand will be. If we strongly promote during 3 or 5 years, I think India will be what China was 5 years ago”, he insisted.
Ricardo González, producer manager at Frusan spoke for his part about the perspectives of the fresh product emphasizing the need that the fruit be consistent, remembering that the final consumer has several buying options: grapes, blueberries, peaches and an endless number of sub-tropical fruits. “Then, our product has to be perfect”, he stated, narrowing down that nowadays more than 50 Chilean actors are exporting prunes to China, which in itself is not a problem.
“The challenge is to make the 50 exporter companies excellent companies”, he stressed.
It should be noted that the event included the outstanding participations of founder and president of Innspiral, Iván Vera who, through several examples showed that innovation is a safe bet to add value to the products, even agricultural products and of D’Agen plum specialist Hugo González whose presentation was focused in making better known practices regarding sustainable plant nutrition that allows to improve productivity in an important manner.
That is how hundreds of attendees to the 12th EXPO Prunes went home with a complete idea regarding the Chilean and international Plum industry with the more technical information about orchards to the commercial information about present and future markets for our exporters. You are invited to the 13th version in 2026…See you!
