Germany: Don Limón beefs up brand with watermelons
The German company has been handling watermelons for a decade now, but they've just entered into their second year of producing and marketing watermelons under the Don Limón brand. It's also their third year of doing substantial volume in international markets. That kind of growth is fuelled by a mentality of continual improvement, said Andreas Schindler of Don Limón.
“We are constantly optimizing every season,” he said. “We have to understand what the problems are and avoid them going forward. Every year we make mistakes, but we learn from them.” Expanding into a new fruit line and shipping to and procuring from more countries to ensure year-round production has a steep learning curve, but that's the necessary path to growth.
“Our process is about always learning and developing new markets,” said Schindler. “You encounter different problems in different regions. For example, in Panama you might have problems with the rainy season, in Spain it might get too hot, but the most important thing is to have people with the knowledge to produce good watermelons. Because of that, now we can supply melons year-round.”
Their production of melons starts in Panamá in February, moves to Almería in April, goes to Murcia in June, concludes in Europe with Italy in September and resumes in Brazil in October. With that kind of supply network, they're able to provide their customers different kinds of melons.
“We're a business-to-business company, so we have to keep in mind what our customers think they can sell,” said Schindler. “Throughout the year, with different channels and different destinations, what they need changes.”
With the expansion, Schindler is optimistic, especially because a larger produce line means a stronger brand.
“I think we underestimated the power of our brand, and we learned last year how powerful it can be to develop new markets,” he said. “I'm really amazed how we went from a local wholesaler to a company acting on a global level.”
www.don-limon.de