An internet platform that brings Spanish producers together has agreed to make direct sales of its products to the Saint Charles International centre, Europe's largest fruit marketing centre, which conducts 61% of its business with Spain.
The collaboration between the marketing centre and the internet portal, which brings together more than 2,000 fruit and vegetable producers, has been the result of a recent visit by Spanish growers, during which traders explained what their specific needs are when it comes to product presentation.
The Naranjasyfrutas.com platform, supported by the Valencian Farmers Association (AVA), has accompanied the producers in this trip to help them find other options for the sale of their crops, reported its promoter, Juan José Bas.
Spanish growers, who also advertise their products on this portal, have held a meeting with a similar organization in Switzerland: Swisscofel, which has shown interest in offering its stores the service supplied by the Valencian website.
While the volume exported through this site is small, within 10 years the portal hopes for most producers, including young ones, to be capable of receiving an order from any place and export their production there.
The platform, through which 293 million kilos of fruit and vegetables are sold from growers all over Spain, has introduced an alarm system at the request of the traders that will allow the latter to receive data about the producers when they advertise a production, thus facilitating the sale.
According to Bas, Spanish growers are introducing modernisation in many aspects, but they need to rely on new technologies to obtain higher profits by offering their products to a larger number of wholesale businesses.
The Saint Charles centre moves more than 1.6 million tonnes of fruit and vegetables, and more than half of its turnover is made with Spain (61%), followed by Morocco (26%), France (8%) and others (5%).
Source: EFE