Ecuador sent a shipment of almost 16,000 kilos of red pitahaya to Russia on the same day that it sent its first shipment of yellow pitahaya to China last week.
The shipment will take 25-30 days to reach the Russian market, stated Remigio Villavicencio, the owner of Pitarem SA, a company that has been producing and exporting red pitahaya for six years and also offers co-packing services.
“This time we carried out a co-packing service. It's basically a strategic alliance between friends that allowed us to position Pitarem's fruit, which was packed by Pitarem and exported by our friends from FruExSur,” he said. The country has already exported this fruit to Russia by air, but we are the first to bet on sending it by sea, he stressed.
Villavicencio has high expectations for this shipment and considers that it will open the market for other producers. “I think we're going to have a very good customer response, we hope he keeps buying more from us.”
The company has already exported this variety to countries such as the US, Spain, Canada, and Peru. Each year they send more than 25 containers to their customers abroad and, according to Villavicencio, the opening of the Chinese and Russian markets will allow them to export 10 more containers a year.
Regarding the opening of new markets for Ecuadorian pitahaya, he said that the Agency for Regulation and Control of Plant and Animal Health (Agrocalidad) was working with its peers in other countries, such as Argentina, Chile, South Korea, and Japan, to open these markets.
Source: eluniverso.com