Exporting apples to the US was one of the most difficult projects for the Italian fruit sector of the past few years. Logistics must be fully organised in order to meet the required phytosanitary parameters.
The varieties of apples sent overseas are Gala, Golden, Granny Smith and Fuji. So far, 15 containers have been shipped and another 2 will be on their way before the end of March. "Fruits arrive from various areas of Trentino Alto Adige authorised for exports according to the "Work Plan" signed by Italy and the US," explains Alessandro Dalpiaz (in the photo), manager of Assomela.
The parameters and the logistics have been established by the Plan, which was agreed upon by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture and Aphis. "Protocols are strict and some of them we had never previously seen. We must say though, that our job was made easier by the fact that institutions and traders worked together," says Nicola Zanotelli (in the photo), chairman of the Form Consortium.
"CSO and Assomela worked great with the Ministry, Local Phytosanitary services, the Italian embassy in Washington, the USDA/Aphis and the Italian Institute of Foreign Trade in New York."
Once harvested, apples must be pre-graded by authorised processing centres (APFs) and sent to the "Valli del Sarca" cooperative for the three inspections necessary for packaging, preclearance and cold-treatment.
"It is not an easy path," says Dalpiaz and in fact, things can go wrong very easily meaning that the procedure must be re-done from scratch.
The two most important aspects of the protocol are: the preclearance inspection followed by sampling and the certification for the cold treatment, which can only be issued by an inspector authorised by the USDA.
When the apples are ready for shipment, the temperature must not exceed 2.2°C. "Reaching 2.2°C was not a problem, but there have been some problems maintaining such temperatures during the journey." That is why internal air flows are essential, together with the type of packaging used, i.e. 18 kg Trialpacks. The journey lasts 2 weeks, plus a couple of days to load containers and another 3/4 for procedures on arrival.
It is still too early to make an assessment, but it can be said that importers appreciated the quality of the produce. Sales were affected by the fact that there was a lot of US produce on the market and because of the Euro/Dollar exchange rate.
Soon there will be a meeting to revise the "Work Plan" in order to simplify certain procedures and obtain the certification for some refrigerated units in order to start the cold treatment already during the storage phase.
Author: Emanuele Mùrino
