"A few years ago, the pineapple imported into Europe was not a product with much added value, other than being an exotic fruit. In many cases, the fruit was not very good, had a very acidic taste and not much flavor," says Daniel Rodriguez, general manager of the Spanish company Glamour Fresh. "This has been changing as ripening in the plant and harvesting at the optimum moment has been improved, making it possible to offer the consumer a ready-to-eat product with a noticeable increase in the taste quality."
The improvement of transit times between the main pineapple producing countries and Europe has been key to working successfully with pineapples, according to Daniel Rodríguez: "Shipping from Puerto Limón, in Costa Rica, to Algeciras, in Spain, takes just 9 days now. This allows us to deliver the pineapple to the point of sale ready to eat, with a minimum brix of 13 degrees, an attractive golden yellow color on the outside and a juicy and sweet pulp. In fact, the fruit's consumption has increased considerably in recent years and continues to grow, which has contributed to pineapples ceasing to be a seasonal product associated with the Christmas period in Spain or Italy. Pineapple marketing has become a job for specialists."
The company supplies pineapple all year round from 4 different origins, with 3 different varieties thanks to agreements with producers in each of those origins. "Costa Rica is, by far, the best country to produce pineapple. We have an agreement with the main pineapple producer, Alvaro Figueroa, shareholder of the company Glamour Fresh, who supplies most of our MD2 pineapples, selected from their 1400 hectares to deliver the best for our brand. When, for climatic reasons, we are unable to supply pineapples from Costa Rica for a few weeks, we fill the gaps with MD2 pineapples from Panama. We also work with Sugarloaf pineapples from Ghana, and Victoria pineapples from the island of Reunion."
Glamour Fresh currently handles between 55 and 60 containers of pineapples per month, as well as around 200 pallets of air-shipped pineapples per month. Its sales are focused on the wholesale channel and small gourmet store chains in Europe. "We sell our pineapples all year round in Spain, Italy or Portugal, as well as other countries in central and northern Europe, all the way to Russia. Since we hardly ever supply supermarket chains and are not subject to fixed price programs, we are not highly affected by the current increase in costs in this global inflationary environment. We focus on very demanding niche markets with high purchasing power that are looking for quality products."
Glamour Fresh was founded in 2017 and has grown from a turnover of €5 million in its first year to €32 million in 2021. "Despite global inflation and logistical hurdles, we are having a good year in which we have already grown by 25% compared to the previous year. The fruits are arriving in perfect condition," says Daniel Rodriguez.
The company works with a single distributor per market, supplying up to 30 different products. "Our core business is the delivery of air-shipped mangoes and pineapples. Having positioned ourselves with these two products, we have been expanding to others, like lemons, papayas, passion fruit, pitahaya...with which we work in the same way, selecting a specialist supplier for each product."
For more information:
Daniel Rodríguez Rochet
Glamour Fresh
Calle Sierra de las Nieves 8 , 29730
Rincón de la Victoria, Malaga. Spain
M: +34 689 291 026
daniel@glamour-fresh.com
glamour-fresh.com