Chilean cherries are finding their way to India, as one exporter has finished its first test shipment via air. If the second test shipment also concludes successfully, larger volumes will be sent to Mumbai Airport. The next challenge is finding a way to ship these cherries via sea, which means they will take 43 days to reach their destination.
Indian fruit importer Fruitways also has offices in Poland and Chile. Saurabh Tanwar, CEO of Fruitways Chile, stated they received interest from India for Chilean cherries for the first time. “The Chilean harvest of cherries started in the middle of November in the South of Chile. India always shows its appreciation and so far has welcomed Chilean cherries by air, mostly.
"As Fruitways Chile we have the experience in the export of fruits like apples, kiwis and avocados as well. However, cherries are also in demand by our Indian customers. This has led to our clients requesting cherries from Chile from us, which proved to be a new challenge for us. Most of the Chilean cherries are moved to China via sea, using a special shipping line called the Cherries Express. For us it was important to send the first trial shipments out quickly, so we’ve decided to use airfreight for a potential shipment.”
Andres Mellado
Naturally the next step for Tanwar was to secure cherries with the quality that would satisfy his clients in India. Luckily, some of his partners in Chile were able to help Tanwar out, as he was at the Fruitways European office at the time. “Our next goal was to secure some of the best export quality cherries, similar to those sent to China, for export to India. This was a challenging task. However, thanks to our cooperation with the Mellado family and our strong team from Olimphya Miguel Fuentes, we have managed to secure what we needed, as I could not physically be in Chile myself due to the coronavirus measures.
"The very first shipment of cherries was exported to Mumbai Airport on the 1st of December, 2020 and we are happy to announce that this test shipment was received well by our client. Another final test shipment will be sent today, the 8th of December, and if all goes well we’re confident enough to start sending larger volumes to our client in India. Indian Ambassador in Chile Anita Nayar has supported our initiative and received one box of our cherries before it was exported. She thought they were delicious and wished us luck in finding a great market in India.”
Anita Nayar
Although the airfreight was a great solution to get the test shipments out quickly, Tanwar hopes they’ll be able to send Chilean cherries to India via sea in the future: “We are working in technical details to achieve almost impossible job to send the cherries to Indian by sea, which sounds challenging and it is. Our barrier will be the long transit to India, which will take about 43 days. We’re working to achieve this impossible task of cherries to be received by sea to our Indian customer. We are not the only and first one to send shipments via sea, but we could be the next in line. In the end I am happy that our cherries are received well by our Indian customer.”
“Due to the pandemic a lot of things have changed in terms of travel, which is currently a barrier for us. By December the 15th, I would have wanted to move from our European office back to the office in Chile, however borders are still closed at the moment and new rules have been introduced. We’ll have to adapt to this new environment and a new way of working. This means working remotely to control the quality and orders, while our team works in the fields and in the warehouse in Chile. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it to our Chilean office by January as the season of apples and kiwis will start again soon.” Tanwar concludes.
For more information:
Saurabh Tanwar
Fruitways
Tel: +56 9 8894 6256
Email: saurabh@fruitways.pl