VOG, the home of apples confirms its status as an apple category benchmark with reorganisation for ever-greater efficiency, product specialisation and a variety and brand assortment able to add value to the fruit and vegetable department all 12 months of the year. All these factors were underlined at Fruit Logistica 2024, where the Consortium highlighted its role as a player in the international fruit and vegetable world and exchanged ideas on the future of the trade with customers, partners and professionals.
A new organisation
In Berlin, the Consortium provided details of the development of its internal organisation. In fact, after centralising its sales VOG now serves the market with a new internal structure. This process, which began some time ago, has now moved into a new phase, which is delivering ever-greater efficiency. Today, the Consortium’s commercial partners enjoy the benefits of a single point of reference for their procurement and category management needs. This evolution has also completed the vertical integration of the production chain: VOG is a system that embraces production, processing, storage, packaging and distribution.
“This organisational approach brings many advantages in terms of efficiency and better control of processes, with an improvement in our already high level of service and in the dialogue between apple farmers, retailers and consumers,” states VOG CEO Walter Pardatscher. “This is all combined with our in-depth specific expertise in one single product, the apple, which plays a central role in fruit and vegetable departments all over the world. Therefore, customers can count on our Home of apples for any apple-related requirements and for inputs on management of the category in the store.”
Market trend
Fruit Logistica was also an opportunity for taking stock of the trend in sales and the progress of the current campaigns. VOG reports a positive situation for the varieties and brands that went onto the market in autumn, with destocking in line with its plans.
“While Royal Gala was the leading apple in the initial phase of sales, we are now experiencing good demand for all our varieties, because they each have their own consumers and market,” explains Sales Manager Klaus Hölzl. “In Europe we’re seeing positive conditions, with Italy and Spain responding well to the new varieties and the German market performing well. For the other destinations, the season got off to a very strong start. The Middle East continues to be our main market, although Central/South America is growing in spite of the challenges arising from the distances involved.”
Future prospects are also encouraging. “We’re expecting the market in the coming months to be good: as other fruit and vegetable products disappear, we will still be present with our high quality apples,” Hölzl continues. “Then from May onwards it will depend on consumption trends and weather conditions, but in general we’re predicting that the situation will be under control.”
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Walter Pardatscher
VOG