Bananas have been synonymous with the Ecuadorian industry for a long time as the country is the leading exporter of that fruit worldwide. The country, however, is not well known for its flourishing broccoli industry, which are grown under unique conditions that allows the country to have production throughout the whole year.
Ecuadorian producers of broccoli expect that Russian buyers start paying attention to the quality of their product as their Spanish competition was banned from the Russian market.
"Ecuador is the only country that has managed to cultivate this vegetable at 2,800 meters above sea level, a height that basically guarantees that the broccoli won't have any defects," said Xavier Hervas, heads of the IQF (instant quick freeze) department of the exporting company Nova Alimentos, in the province of Cotopaxi.
"Our products aren't expensive, but the problem is that the frozen industry has a layer of frozen water of about 20-30%, and that makes the products gain weight," he said.
"We don't do that in Ecuador, so we haven't had many results with Russian buyers, as they tend to see us as an expensive source. The Russians pay by kilo, so they think our product is more expensive despite the fact that it doesn't have this extra ice formation over it like the broccoli from Spain," he added.
The executive said the broccoli had fewer harvest cycles in other latitudes, but that they could have a permanent and consistent crop since Ecuador was in the equator and had no seasons.
"During the day, we have a temperature of 20°C and at night it is close to 5°C. This temperature difference is a good natural barrier against insects, diseases, fungi and the like, "said Hervas. "Hence, we don't have to conduct many applications to keep our product free of insects," he added, noting that, even though their operation consisted in growing conventional, non-organic, products, this change in temperature helped them decrease residues.
The resulting quality has been a great success in Japan, which is the largest market for Ecuadorian frozen broccoli, followed by the European Union and other destinations like the US, Canada and Chile. "The benefits of the Ecuadorian broccoli are not well known in Russia so the development will be a little slow, but eight years ago were the third largest source for Japan and had a small volume of that market," he said.
"We are currently Japan's second largest broccoli supplier, only after China. Mexico used to rank second but now they are third, and we have eight times more volume than Mexico," he said. The Japanese are increasingly buying more from Ecuador when they could have bought it to China.
Ecuador might not have enough volumes of broccoli to replace what other suppliers gave Russia, but, according to Hervas, the recent changes in the market are a boost for shipping to that country.
"We can't immediately send huge volumes because we can only harvest the fields we have, but it gives us an opportunity to continue growing," he said, noting that the industry has about 1,500 hectares of planted broccoli and a total production of about 30,000 metric tons.
Carlos Lema Bone, from PROECUADOR's sales office in Moscow, also emphasized the high quality of Ecuadorian broccoli, and said he expected there would be boost in shipments as, up to date, deals had been very casual.
"There was hardly any space to export before, due to the high supply from Spain, Italy and Poland, which are no longer in the picture. In that sense, Ecuador could have a very strong momentum in Russia," he said.
Source: Fresh Fruit Portal