Costa Rica is currently the world's largest pineapple exporter, largely thanks to a solid public-private partnership and marketing strategies based on business intelligence information.
Last year, the country exported $873 million of this tropical fruit, which is grown on nearly 43,000 hectares, an area which has more than doubled in the last ten years.
Meanwhile, the situation in Panama is almost completely the opposite, even though Panama is known for having one of the sweetest pineapples in the world. Last year, Panama devoted about 2,900 hectares to pineapple crops and pineapple exports fell from $21 million in 2015 to $14 million in 2016.
Alvaro Piedra, the manager of Procomer, a public-private entity that promotes the country's exports, said that Costa Rica had been successful because they had worked on marketing their fruit at the international level, and followed good agricultural practices.
According to Piedra, the key to achieving this was good organisation and a smooth communication with the business groups: "Having a clustered and organized industry would be a breakthrough. That's how it works in Costa Rica. The first advice is - get organized. The second advice is - establish a public-private strategy for different markets."
The manager said that Costa Rica's pineapples had been successful because "They have trade promotion offices around the world. They are satellites that constantly give out information."
Procomer has a budget of $17 million per year, which it uses to participate in international fairs and to operate its 40 offices around the world.
Recently, and after five years of negotiations, Costa Rica managed to open the Chinese market for its flagship export product.
The main markets for Costa Rican pineapples are the United States, which buys 52% of the country's exports, the Netherlands (15%) and Belgium, Italy, and Spain, each with 7%.
Based on the information it receives from its commercial offices, Procomer's business clusters and distributors devised a strategy presentation that has had a major impact on international markets: selling fruit in a box that has a caption stating that the pineapples were harvested at their optimum ripeness and transported by plane from their country of origin.
"This is how Costa Rica exports its pineapples, it's pure marketing. These are trends we're detecting worldwide," Piedra said.
The agency is working on a project to include a code on the pineapple packaging, so that the consumer can trace it from his cellphone.
In 2016, Costa Rica exported about $17 billion; 56% in goods and 44% in services. The goal, Piedra said, is to increase that number to $21 billion in three years.
Authorities of the Ministry of Commerce and Industries and leaders of the Panamanian Association of Exporters have visited Costa Rica to learn what practices that country has implemented so that they can strengthen Panama's depressed export sector.
According to Procomer, the trade balance between Panama and Costa Rica was $872.4 million; $294 million of which correspond to Panamanian exports.
Even though, Piedra says. it's very difficult to have a robust and thriving export sector if there is no partnership between the public and private sectors, marketing strategies continue to be one of the main components of success.
Our slogan, Essential Costa Rica, "Involves several important attributes: we promote the origin of our products, social progress, sustainability, innovation, and quality. We are making marketing strategies for different markets following those guidelines."
Source: impresa.prensa.com