Costa Rica: Tropifoods ventures into the tropical fruit with added value

In 2002, after a decade of managing his partner's brand in the US, the company launched its own brand, Tropifoods, with the challenge of introducing the product line in Europe. They started with the marketing of cassava and pineapple in this continent, becoming a supplier for some importers in the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. Recently, the firm started a project in the UK and plans to expand to more countries.

As for the Asian markets, the company considers them interesting but, according to Edgar, the problem is that they need to treat fresh produce in order to send it to such far away destinations. Due to this, but also in search of diversifying their business after 23 years in the fresh fruit business, Tropifoods decided to venture into the processing and frozen foods markets.

"We are currently packing in two locations: Upala and Pital de San Carlos, and on the medium-term we plan to concentrate all of our operation in the latter," says Edgar. "We've also been working for a year on the project of processing frozen products and have already started to introduce frozen cassava in Europe."

The company's efforts are focused primarily on quality. The company has the Global GAP certification and is working to get the Labour Ethics certification. The goal is to reach the standards required to meet the needs of the most demanding and sophisticated customers.

One of Tropifoods' biggest projects is the opening of a subsidiary in the US with a distribution centre for small producers to ensure ethics in the export process. "Producers can be confident that our company will protect them and that both parties will profit from doing business, enabling us all to continue growing. It is a joint effort that aims to promote, not only agriculture in Costa Rica, but all of Central America," concluded Edgar Medina.