Guhan Ramachandran used to import Royal Gala apples from New Zealand for Indian supermarkets. Today, his company, Komatha Fresh, has a branch in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. And it is now preparing to import Indian grapes to supply European retail chains. "Our local presence is a great advantage. Last year, we imported 30 containers and had an excellent season. We hope to expand that further this year," he says.
The grapes are packaged at a modern packing facility in Mohadi, near the Indian city of Nashik. There, more than 200 containers can be processed. Komatha does not only offer Thompson Seedless grapes. They have Ganesh (white seedless), Sharad, Jumbo (black seedless), Flame, Crimson, Fantasy (red seedless) and Sonaka (oblong) varieties too. Pomegranate seeds from India also form part of Komatha Fresh's range. "Our main markets are Germany, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium."
"We know our growers. And we do the quality checks and packaging ourselves. So, we’re sure of our fruit’s quality,” Guhan points out. "That’s especially important in the grape business. Every supermarket has extra-legal MRL standards. Because we control the quality, there are no surprises. There’s a new development - we’re now working on getting Fairtrade certified. That's in addition to Sedex, Smeta, and GlobalGAP. It’s a lengthy process. But, we expect to offer Fairtrade-certified grapes from India by next year."
“In India, grape harvesting begins in week 4. Their Brix reached levels suitable for the European market in week 5 or 6. The Indian season runs until April. The current grape market looks good. We sell most of our grapes to supermarket programs. Dutch supermarkets are, fortunately, still open later. COVID-19 has, thus, not negatively affected our sales, in that sense. The situation is far more uncertain for parties that focus on sales to trading companies.”
"Logistics are very challenging, with cargo rates twice as high as last year. Everyone’s fighting for space. Our products can’t tolerate long delays either. Fortunately, we’ve reached good deals with Maersk. We work solely with them. Not everyone understands why we only work with one shipping company as it’s more expensive. But, for us, it guarantees quality. And, this year, we’ve managed to triple our cargo space," Guhan concludes.
For more information:
Mayuresh Joshi
Komatha Fresh
Tel: +31 (0) 621 412 681
mayuresh.joshi@komathafresh.com
www.komathafresh.com