Quality and promotion, tasks for the star items

02/01/2018

With strong increases in plantations over the past five years, the producers of nuts, cherries and hazelnuts are ready to face successive increases in production, expanding the processing capacity, with more marketing of the Chilean brand and enhancing sectoral work.

Only in the last five years, the area planted with European walnuts, cherries and hazelnuts has doubled in the country, with orchards that in some cases still do not produce fruit or have not entered full production. All this has led them to be profiled as fruit trees that will lead on the surface in the coming years and, compared to the consolidated, such as apples, grapes or avocados, learning has been fast.

This has involved the development of a specialized logistics chain for each one. However, there are still bottlenecks to be addressed, such as ensuring that all producers focus on quality, increasing the capacity of plants to process growing volumes, develop new markets and join efforts between producers and exporters.

These tasks are those that hazelnut, cherries and nut producers pose as their main challenges in 2018.

UNION GREMIAL

With the idea of jointly addressing the issues of research, innovation and market development, the members of ChileNut - which brings together the nut producers - and the Chilean Walnut Commission - which brought together the exporters - joined in a unique guild, under the name of ChileNut.

Although they will operate with two committees, one productive and the other commercial, they will have a single board that will meet monthly to collect common topics of interest.

«I do not remember a product that has grown as fast in volume planted in Chile as the nuts. In seven years we became the second largest crop in the country, so we have to grow in internal processes and focus on maintaining our quality«explains the new president of ChileNut, Nicolás Di Cosmo.

The example is a reference for hazelnut producers. Although it is a new industry, which until now has a single purchasing power - AgriChile, from the Ferrero group - the idea of union also begins to emerge.

«One of the important flaws in hazelnuts is the lack of grouping. From the associations come new forms of marketing, distribution channels, negotiations with purchasing powers and a lot of things, such as demanding quality and developing research and development«says Andrés Reyes, producer and owner of AgroReyes, a company that supplies more than a thousand hectares of European hazelnut plants per year and that already advises about five thousand hectares.

He also believes that it would serve to demand that the agrochemical industry catch up with hazelnuts, since most of the available products do not have specialized indications for that species.

«We are occupying highly toxic products because they are efficient, but we must seek friendship with the environment. In the company we have a specific branch to make trials and it costs a lot to get to the agrochemicals, because they tell us that a product is already approved, but in the specific case of the hazel tree, and it is not known what the dose is«Comments.

The agricultural manager of AgriChile, Eugenio Ulrici, agrees with this failure and believes that it is pending to complement the growth of plantations with the contribution of universities, research centers and other entities that help improve productivity and quality, for which your company is working with Inacap and SNA Educa.

«We hope in the medium term to have a center of innovation and skills that allows us to innovate in the technique of cultivation, and experiment with the varieties that we have today.«, projects Eugenio Ulrici.

FOSTERING INNOVATION AND IP

This season, the cherry harvest would add 34 million boxes, 79% more than in the previous campaign, which closed at 19 million. The increase was expected for a couple of seasons, but climatic events prevented it from happening.

That is why these days will be the litmus test for cherry producers, which will force them to make decisions such as expanding the capacity of some exporters and putting more effort into promotion in China. «The idea is to increase the consumption of those who already do it, so that they eat more times in the Chilean season, and that those who have not yet bought Chilean cherries are encouraged to do so. In China there is a lot of remembrance of the Chilean brand and that is a great achievement that must be sustained«says Cristián Tagle, commercial manager of the exporter San Francisco Lo Garcés and president of the Cherry Committee.

In nuts, this year they will invest US $ 1,3 million in promotion in India and the same amount in Korea, defined as strategic markets for the volumes of fruit that will come, especially in 2019, where an increase of 20% in production is expected.

«India has a holiday in October where a basket of gifts with nuts and US is made. it does not reach to arrive with its new harvest. We arrived with fresh fruit and this year they gave us the preference and I think we are going to keep it«says Di Cosmo.

In Korea, the bet is to recover the land that Chile had a few years ago with the split nut, where today only has the 7% stake.

FOCUS ON QUALITY

The quality of the fruit is a central theme and the letter of presentation of Chile. Therefore, not neglecting it is a transversal challenge. The producers and exporters of walnuts have already established quality standards and a walnut manual, while in cherries the subject is in the hands of each exporter, and in the hazelnuts, of each producer.

«Much of Chile's growth and market acceptance has been for quality, and we have to encourage the entire industry to work to maintain it«says Nicolás Di Cosmo.

In hazelnuts, a key challenge is to diversify marketing, and quality is also essential. «The commercial activity with Ferrero works well, but we can not be suppliers of a single buyer, and for that we have to have good quantity and quality. We have to group and open doors«, proposes Reyes.

Cherries live a different reality. Until now the quality control depends on each company, and before the increase of fruit appear bottlenecks.

«Quality is a sum of details and each one has an impact. That forces us to have a harvest logistics with specialized people and to be even more efficient in the plants. There are countless tasks to tackle«says Cristián Tagle.

The commercial manager of exporter Prize, Ricardo Aspillaga, agrees that increasing process capacity is a challenge.

«They will miss plants. The big companies have it super clear and they will invest, but we had to wait for this to happen. This year there have been no major problems in labor at harvest, but in packaging, because they are all plants at full capacity«he comments, and details that at Prize they have projects to grow in that area.

Source: Paloma Díaz Abásolo - Report - El Mercurio