Spain: Successful Fruit Attraction

The first FRUIT ATTRACTION, a Fair for the Trade Sector of Fruits and Vegetables, co-organized by IFEMA and FEPEX held from 4 to 6 November at Feria de Madrid, has registered a total of 12,628 professional participants, according to figures audited by the AFE, Spanish Fair’s Association, surpassing all expectations for this first outing, which has brought together virtually all the Spanish distribution and a very high international participation.

Of the 12,628 professional participants, a total of 8480 were professional visitors, high profile and a high capacity of decision making. Specifically, 7481 were national and 999 international from 52 countries. France leads the ranking of international professionals in the fair, with 16% of the total, followed by Italy with 14%, Portugal with 12%, Netherlands with 9%, UK with 8%; Poland, with 6%, Germany with 5% and Brazil, with 4%.

Nationally, the regions that contributed the most visitors were Madrid (2345 visitors), Andalusia (1,328), Catalonia (777), Valencia (750) and Murcia with 635 visitors. These communities were followed with 310 guests from Aragon, Castilla-La Mancha with 252 visitors, 251from the Canaries Isl., Castilla y Leon and with198 visitors, Extremadura with 188 visitors. Visitors from other autonomous communities were: Basque Country (95), Galicia (75), La Rioja (60), Navarra (57), Principado De Asturias (25), Cantabria (11), Balearics (10) and Melilla ( 2).

From a commercial stand point FRUIT ATTRACTION has contributed actively to boost the relations between different actors in the business chain and in the professional field it has proved to be a wonderful meeting point of the distribution sector, contributing significantly to improve expectations  in the short to medium term. The fulfillment of these goals will certainly help to broaden the social, economic and commercial projects in its next fair to be held next year.

General satisfaction:

All the participating companies and institutions have expressed their satisfaction with the results obtained at the fair. Thus, for Antoni Costa, representing the Association of Onion Producers and Sellers of Catalonia, said that "FRUIT ATTRACTION has been very useful, because we have made a large number of business contacts, received a high volume of visitors and to show a high amount of new features all with an excellent organization.”

In the same vein, Alberto Garrocho, president of the Sociedad Cooperativa Andaluza Santa Maria de la Rabida and president of Freshuelva notes that, "Nobody expected the acceptance that they had. In three days we have contacted customers who would have taken us past 4 weeks to contact in the past. The international guests - German, English, and Italians have found this to be a wonderful idea, because they can visit in a same place individual companies that they had planned to visit, instead of visiting each production area in Spain."

DuPont has also made a very favorable comments of their participation in this fair,  which they have regarded as "destined to occupy a prominent place in the international calendar. This company is very pleased to have been part of this first edition, "demonstrating with their presence the importance of shared aspirations and concerns with the productive sector. Attraction Fruit has been, and should be in the future, a forum of recognized technical and commercial interest for the horticultural sector,” comments from Dupont. They conclude "as providers, we believe it is our responsibility to share time and space with Spanish producers, who are the real protagonists.
For the Murcian company IV gama, Kernel, the first edition of FRUIT ATTRACTION has exceeded its expectations and has helped to make this event a perfect showcase and meeting point for the sector. They highlighted the high professional profile of the visitors.
The Asociación de empresarios mayoristas del Mercado Central de Frutas de Madrid (Mercamadrid) qualify as successful their participation in the fair, which has developed a large business and commercial activity, highlighting repentantly the high number of visits by the professionals in the three days they spent at the fair.

Other activities

Parallel to the commercial activities, FRUIT ATTRACTION has developed a comprehensive program of professional technical seminars, which have been filled to capacity in all sessions. On the first day dedicated to the European distribution revealed their responses the economic crisis is to increase promotional efforts, manage the supply and promote collaboration with suppliers.

On the 5th day of November, dedicated to the cogeneration, stated that development in Spain of a new operating model incorporating greenhouse and cogeneration and the use of CO2 is vital for maintaining competitiveness in horticulture. Cogeneration is the joint production of mechanical energy and heat energy, both usable in the production process, which takes place inside a greenhouse prepared for this purpose, enabling higher yields and expanding production schedules, while reducing CO2 emissions.


During the day devoted to plant health policy, it was stressed that given the globalization of markets and of pests it is necessary that Spain has the same availability of plant protection products that our main competitors have, both Community and non-community. It also concluded that to expedite the availability, MARM means to separate the tasks of evaluation of plant protection products from those on the management of licenses, continuing the latter depends on MARM.

Source: FEPEX

Publication date: 11/18/2009

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