Ecuador: Pineapple production is outgrowing demand

“Every year the summer months are a problem for pineapple exports. There is a lot of competition from local summer fruit in Europe, such as stone fruits, that we only have available temporarily in Europe. It makes sense to me that consumers prefer this fruit, though, that makes it difficult for exporters of tropical fruit like pineapples and bananas from Latin America to Europe”, says Pedro Francisco the commercial director of the Ecuadorian company SSMO FRUIT.

The Ecuadorian pineapple market is rather small if you compare it to Costa Rica, their main competitor, says Pedro. “The total pineapple production of Ecuador is about 6000 hectares, of which 800 hectares are from our company. We started 10 years ago with a small plantation. We grow year by year and it´s expected that we reach the 1000 hectares of plantation next year. Our clients are located all over the world, such as New Zealand, Chile, USA and Europe, that is our main focus market nowadays.”

SSMO FRUIT is GlobalGap certified and it’s expected to have the Rainforest Alliance within one month.

“The natural flowering starts around April, which has led to high volumes of pineapples exported from all American producing countries. Normally, this should be over by the end of May/beginning of June. This should result in a gap with less fruit available on the market”, explains Pedro.

The European market demand is very low at the moment. Furthermore, this year the volumes are still high what leads to incessant low prices. “This is the problem we are facing in the pineapple market right now. I believe prices will improve from the beginning of August on and slowly we hope to reach the ‘normal prices´. We are used to though summer weeks, however last year the prices never got the normal price level for pineapple throughout the year. People are afraid this will happen again this year, afraid that it’s becoming a pattern in the supply and demand of our fruit.”

Pedro shares his concern about the growing production worldwide. He says that producers are still investing in and increasing its production. “We understood that Costa Rica has a stop on expanding production due to environmental issues. The question is how the government can keep track of all of this. Nevertheless, other countries are still expanding the pineapple production. The overall demand is increasing, but not at the same pace.”

“Countries like Panama, Colombia and Ecuador were used to export to the South and North American markets. Nonetheless, demand decreased in those countries, which opened their eyes to new markets”, says Pedro. He believes it’s time to search for new markets, spread the overall supply, and have less risk focusing on one market.

The company SSMO FRUIT expertise is to export pineapples by ship. The capacity is to export 25 containers per week. “We have the largest packing station in all of Ecuador, with refrigeration chambers that fit up to 15 containers. Our strong relations with the logistics providers gives the benefit to work with competitive prices.”

According to Pedro, Ecuadorian pineapples are less well known than those from Costa Rica, due to its volume, time on the market and the promotion of the fruit by its government. “Consumers might prefer this origin because they are used to it, even though the quality of Ecuadorian pineapples might be superior. In fact, we have a very nice climate in Ecuador for its production and that helps to deliver the best pineapples to worldwide consumers. We only have a small region in Ecuador that has these favourable conditions for pineapple, that´s why the production is not so large. Yet, the quality is amazing!”