In 2020, we want to export 1,000 containers per year”

Many people know Don Limón for its citrus. However, their production is much larger than just that. “Several new products were added the last 10 years. For example, we offer grapes and lemons, and for more than two years we’ve also been offering sweet potatoes. What we’ve learned from limes, we’re now also bringing into practice for this product. Our volume aim is to export 1,000 containers per year in 2020 out of Central America. Now we’re only bringing 200 to 240 containers. Our most important buyers are Canada and Europe. In Europe it’s mostly the southern countries, such as Spain, Italy and France. The UK is a large buyer of sweet potatoes. It’s not our biggest customer, but there’s definitely potential to grow in this country. Beside fresh they use sweet potatoes also for processing into chips, crisps and animal feed.”

Local growers
“We’ve started a special SDG project for sweet potatoes,” says Andreas Schindler from Don Limón. “The products come from local growers from various countries, including Honduras and Guatemala. We’ve made gains in the field of sustainable development. We support the small growers in the various areas and make sure they can live off their product. The cultivation and marketing of sweet potatoes are less complicate than limes The products are planted and 120 days later they are on the shelves. That’s completely different for limes, you then only know after four years whether you’ve grown the right variety.”

Growing
He mentions that the product from US is still the market leader in the export of sweet potatoes. “Of course, they started years before we did, but we’ve seen many Central American countries growing in this product. We also started a project in Nicaragua. The great thing is that we bring them right after harvesting and a so called curing process. Those from the US have often been stored for months. We ensure that both our partner growers and we ourselves meet quality standards and that the potatoes are free from residues.”

For more information:
Andreas Schindler
Don Limón
Tel.: +49 (0)40 - 3095499-45
GSM: +49 (0)171 85 83 211
Fax: +49 (0)40 - 3095499-60
aschindler@pilz-schindler.de
www.don-limon.de
www.pilz-schindler.de