The director of commercial promotion of the Ministry of Rural Development (Seder), Rene Arenas Gutierrez, said that that last weekend they sent a trial shipment of 800 kilograms of pitahaya to the US and that they could export up to 10 tons of pitahaya to that market during the next six weeks.
"We plan to send two shipments of more than 800 kilos and up to 1,200 kilos to the United States market, especially to the States where there are many Mexicans." We think that we can export 10 tons, depending on how good the pitahaya season is; that will determine what we can export."
According to Arenas Gutierrez, pitahaya producers are selling their product at almost twice the unit price that they get in the domestic market, which varies between four and eight pesos; which means they could be making 16 pesos for each 100-gram pitahaya.
According to calculations, for example, the first shipment of 800 kilos had a cost that ranged between 64 thousand pesos and 128 thousand pesos; hence, in six weeks, if producers export 10 tons for export, they could generate an average of one 1.2 million pesos in sales.
"What I can tell you is that they are selling their products at almost twice the price that they get in the national market. In addition, this is a project that tends to grow and we hope that we can slowly position the product at a better price in the market abroad," said Rene Arenas.
The Director of Commercial Promotion of the Seder, said that, as the harvest had begun, they would be unable to integrate more producers nor expand the number of hectares certified for this year, but that they expected to increase the supply for 2018.
"We are going to work with 36.2 certified hectares, that's what the protocol authorizes to make shipments to the United States this year."
Source: informador.com.mx