Jump after jump, the producer, exporter and marketer of Chilean berries Hortifrut, seems to have no roof in its mission of bringing "all berries, worldwide, every day." This kind of food is also classified as fruits of the forest, among which are blueberries, raspberries and blackberries.

The firm founded and chaired by Víctor Moller has not ceased in recent years to sign agreements with companies around the world to fulfill its. In this way, a few weeks ago from the company announced that they entered the property of the Portuguese berry producer BFruit, which specializes in raspberries.

In conversation with Pulso Domingo, the general manager of Hortifrut, Juan Ignacio Allende, comments from the Fruit Logistics in Berlin - the main fair of the international fruit trade - that the entrance to the Portuguese company has them “very excited” and details that It was “a purchase of 11,8% of the property of BFruit, which opens the possibility of having a supply of more than 1.500 tons of raspberries and 400 tons of blueberries from that country by 2020. Likewise, we have a very important growth projection in that country of raspberries and blackberries from our own genetics ”.

With this, the executive says that they can “supply our European customers throughout the year, not only blueberries, but also raspberries, adding blackberries to this portfolio in the short term. The production of raspberries in Portugal is very complementary to what we have in Morocco ”.

In addition to the Portuguese incursion, the local firm announced a couple of days before the social outbreak that agreed to two alliances. One with Alifrut - of the Lecaros Menéndez family - to create the largest vehicle at the Chilean level in the export of frozen fruit; and another with the Colombian firm of the Afanador family, Proplantas, to be able to export blueberries to the Northern Hemisphere from the coffee country as of this month. And also in 2019 they announced their expansion in Mexico for US $ 45 million, for their blueberry business.

But perhaps the project that most caught the attention of the market was the start of its own production in China, thanks to the alliance they have held since 2016 with the Joy Wing Mau firm for the development of plantations and distribution of berries. They are planting 230 hectares of high density blueberries -10 thousand plants per hectare- in three stages. Recently they injected US $ 50 million to finance the third stage and to double production and packing.

At the end of the third quarter of 2019, Hortifrut had already completed its first harvest in China, with 299 tons sold.

Faced with the threat that the coronavirus means for the exports of its products from China to the world, Allende is positive and points out that “our production in that country is just beginning and is concentrated in March and April. We have managed to market all our local fruit so far, given the commercial efforts we have made with our partner to supply the Chinese supermarkets, which have not stopped working. We believe that things will slowly return to normal, allowing us to sell our local fruit without problems. ”

Anyway, the executive details that “of the commercialization of our 55.000 tons, only about 1.000 tons of blueberries and 500 tons of cherries will be affected. Clearly this is very unfortunate, but the diversification of Hortifrut in the world allows us to face this impact better than many of our competitors, who have focused much more than us in China. ”

It also recognizes the difficulties of being able to specify Chinese shipments to other markets. "Something we have been able to transfer, but the existing bureaucracy to re-export from one market to another is complex and the transits are not so short, so any potential transfer threatens the quality of the fruit."

Hortifrut has been, by far, one of the Chilean agricultural companies that has expanded the most in the world in recent times, which has also been reflected at the stock market level: it is the company with the highest rise since it opened to the Stock Exchange in 2012, almost quadrupling the price of their papers, specifically scoring an increase of 219%. If in 2012 its stock market value at the time of entering the Santiago Stock Exchange was US $ 226,7 million, today it is US $ 711,2 million.

In order to grow over the past few years, the company founded by the Moller family has had no problems adding new partners along the way.

In fact, after the alliance announced in 2018, where the Peruvian Quevedo family entered the shareholders' pact that Hortifrut controls, in the third quarter of 2019 the companies of the neighboring country group weigh practically the same as the Moller family, with a percentage of the company of 17,40%, versus 17,41% of Chileans. The Vitalberry Group closes the shareholders agreement, with 17,86% of the fruit. In turn, the Vitalberry Group is made up of the holdings of the families of the businessmen Ignacio del Río (their companies total 9,69% of Hortifrut) and Eduardo Elberg (8,17%). Other families that are not part of the shareholders' agreement and that have lower percentages of the company are the Swett, Novión and Urzúa, in addition to small caps investment funds and the AFPs.

The Quevedo have been to the Peruvian blueberry industry, what the Mollers have been for that same sector in Chile. With this union, both countries establish themselves as a larger pole for the commercialization of berries.

“We are, together with our partners, the largest blueberry marketer in the world. We are in 37 countries and we see that the consumption potential is much greater than what we currently produce. The growth of consumption worldwide continues to be over two digits ”, details the general manager of Hortifrut.

The company has productive alliances in 10 countries and works with more than 800 producers internationally to be able to supply more than 500 large global customers every day of the year.

The company's top executive reveals that the market share in berries in the US it reaches 50%, while in Europe it is 35% and in Asia, 15%. He adds that in the 2019-2020 season, Hortifrut has commercialized more than 55.000 tons of berries, with all exports missing until June 30, 2020 to close the season.

When asked about expansions to other large markets that may materialize soon, Allende comments that “in the Middle East we already have an office that has started sales of our berries during 2019. We constantly sell Russia through our Euroberry platform, and many countries from Southeast Asia we sell them directly from all our production origins. ” However, confidence that "India and Australia are interesting countries, which we have visited regularly in order to be attentive to the possible opportunities that are generated in those markets in the near future."