Port authorities in Tanger, Marseille, Sète and Port-Vendres met at the Medfel trade show in Perpignan from the 26th-28th April 2016 and expressed their wishes for more Mediterranean fruit and vegetables to be transported by sea. Jerome Strauss, Director General of the HM group says that they work with “about 300,000 tons of fruit and vegetables per year. Our main advantage is our responsiveness and proximity to Saint-Charles International, which enables us to offer competitive processing times”.
The fruit terminal for the East in Marseille processed 800,000 tons of fruit and vegetables per year before being closed in 2009, the Fresh Food Corridor should be open at the start of 2017. Georges Oberlé, Head of Commercial Development at the GPMM which processes about 500,000 tons of fruit and vegetables per year says that “This project which has just been successfully tested aims to transport products from Israel to Holland, via Venice, Koper and Fos-sur-Mer, combining sea and rail routes. The aim is to show that we can go from the South to the North of Europe with good transit-times, whilst maintaining fruit and vegetable quality and we are limiting handling.” Sète, which has no fruit and vegetable traffic, will launch a call for projects next June to commercialise their almost 23,000m2 refrigerated warehouses which went into activity in 2011 but were soon abandoned. Since the end of 2015, management of the warehouses has been handed over to Ports Sud de France, also owners of Port-la-Nouvelle. Tangier port is working on extensions for road traffic due to an increasing demand.
But the largest task is convincing shippers to choose sea transportation over road. Whilst sea passages are obviously better for the environment, it has inconveniences in terms of flexibility and costs. Another problem is return shipments, Georges Oberlé explains that “We are launching in the next few days a liaison between Marseille and Civitavecchia in Italy. We don’t have any problems going to Italy, but it is difficult to find return cargo”. Jordi Torrent Pujol, Director of Strategy at Barcelona Port says that there are real export opportunities from Barcelona, “Today, the Chinese market imports a lot of food products from Spain, from Barcelona, mainly high end, such as ham, olive oil or wine. The fruit and vegetable sector today still needs to think about exporting as I am convinced that this market will develop over the years to come”. Barcelona processes 375,000 tons of fruit and vegetables per year.