The Toñifruit company, Anecoop's main partner in organically grown fruits and citrus, added a potential 1,000 tons of organic stone fruit after signing a commercial agreement with Calasparra's Bio Lobrot S. Coop, the largest producer of organic stone fruit in Murcia.
Toñifruit, based in Librilla (Murcia), specializes in organic agriculture, producing organic citrus, pomegranate, grapes, and stone fruits. The company is increasing its portfolio of organic stone fruit through Bio Lobrot S. Coop's wide catalog. This includes the apricots, peaches, nectarines, flat peaches, and platterines it produces from the end of April to July in 20,000 trees on its estates between Cieza and Calasparra, as well as its solar-powered sustainable packaging warehouse.
With this operation, Toñifruit strengthens its position as a reference within the organic fruit segment, adding another 1,000 tons of organic stone fruit to its offer to continue betting on organic fruit and its development in Europe. The two warehouses will remain operational and will specialise in product lines, strengthening the company's structure and saving costs by avoiding duplication of processes.
This alliance fulfills a triple objective. It creates a stronger company by pooling capacities, bringing together product volume, and making more efficient use of resources, with access to a larger volume of business and using the same marketing channel. In addition, cost savings are generated by implementing economies of scale that avoid duplication of processes. Ultimately, it forms an association of farmers committed to environmental, economic, and social sustainability.
This strategic step responds to the new features of Toñifruit's fruit center in Librilla, in which it has invested 4 million euros in high-tech and improving the packaging warehouse. This technological investment is in line with the possibility of being able to select stone fruit by color and quality, thanks to the fruit selection equipment installed two seasons ago, and currently incorporating Artificial Intelligence.
Since the estates in Calasparra are more than 350 meters above sea level, Toñifruit will have a stone fruit supply until July. In addition, the region's balanced climatic conditions, sunny days, and cool nights during spring and summer will allow the company to offer consistent fruit with high sugar content to address European markets. "It is one of the highest altitude orchards for organic stone fruit in Spain," stated Juan Antonio Martínez, Director of Toñifruit.
The management of both companies has expressed satisfaction with this important step, which is the result of mutual trust and a shared strategic vision. "This alliance strengthens Toñifruit's position as a benchmark in this segment," stated Juan Antonio Martínez, director of Toñifruit. Antonio Lozano, the manager of Bio Lobrot S. Coop, stressed that this action "is the commitment of a family to strengthen and promote an agricultural model that the European Union has been working to promote for years and that is part of its strategic plans for the future."
With this decision, Toñifruit has increased its activity, centred on organic citrus, grapes, and pomegranates. "We are boosting the availability of organic stone fruit in international markets, the least available fruits of the organic range in the whole European market," Martínez stated.
The agreement comes in a context in which the consumption of organic stone fruit in Europe is quite limited, with France and Germany as the markets with the highest demand, but very far from the levels of other categories. In 2023, German demand for organic stone fruit closed below 12,000 tons in peaches and nectarines. "Our goal is that our customers can offer higher volumes of sustainable organic fruit so that there is greater availability in all European markets," the director of Toñifruit stated.
The operation with Bio Lobrot is not the first in this sense. Toñifruit closed a social integration agreement with the Almeria-based company Albentillas S.C.A. in November 2023 to gain structure in the organic segment, to increase its competitiveness, and add more ecological references.