Green West, a Colombian fruit exporter company that is preparing the opening of its collection and distribution center in the municipality of Guarne, is searching for some 200 small producers of Hass avocados in eastern Antioquia that want to sell their production to the world.
The company expects the plant to be ready this month and in full production during the first quarter of 2016. The company has invested 800 million pesos in three warehouses located at kilometer 21 of the Medellin-Bogota highway, from which they will dispatch two containers of avocado per week.
"The goal is to move about 300 containers per year from this place, i.e. 6,000 tons of avocado," said Arturo Infante Santos, manager of Green West.
The place has a cold room that can hold up to two containers of fruit at five degrees Celsius, thus minimizing risks and extending the period of maturation to ensure exports.
The value added is a business model in which the company works hand in hand with small producers. "We become an ally so they can reach the international market," said Infante.
The strategy arises because small and medium producers are rejected by major exporters, as it is hard and uneconomical to fill a container with Hass avocados, or any other variety, with different qualities and sizes.
That's why they're betting on unifying the fruit in each shipment. To do this, they are sensitizing small and medium producers of eastern Antioquia, relying on the Sena and the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA).
They show producers that the boom of growing avocados in Antioquia should focus on the external market and not on the internal one.
Indeed, many producers planted Hass avocados a few years ago because it was good business. "They already have large trees in production, but since the current domestic price is 1,000 pesos per kilo, producers prefer to finish the crop because it is not profitable," stated the manager of West Green.
Thus, apart from giving producers training and support, the company promised to purchase their avocado in cash for up to four to five times what the domestic market is currently paying, provided they comply with international market standards.
"Together we produce more than a great producer but we have to show small producers that they need to have an orderly business and a quality product, motivated from a passion for avocado," said Infante.
Origins
Green West was born from the producers' need to find a better price for their products. So a group of local investors joined the Colombian fruit export giant Wolf and Wolf, with over 20 years experience in the business and now senior partner of the young company.
The company’s capital is one hundred percent Colombian, and its goal is to surpass the quality and certification obstacles there are to export Colombian fruit.
Fernando Bernal, manager of Wolf and Wolf, said in an interview in 2014, that their first shipment of Hass avocado in 2009 had been to the Netherlands, where they shipped 2,360 boxes. That barely accounted for 45 percent of the container’s capacity, as they didn’t have enough product to fill it.
That first international sale strengthened them and they later arrived to France, Belgium and Spain.
"One of our goals is to ship avocados to the United States because of its proximity and because of the high consumption levels that market has," Bernal said in the interview.
Strategic alliance
Overall, working with a company that knows what the international market likes or doesn’t like allows producers to easily sell and improve their offer.
Agronomist, Henry Acevedo, who is linked to Green West, said they visited the farms and taught producers how to obtain free of disease high quality avocados for export.
"When we collect production, we apply a fungicide on the fruit that prevents it from having diseases or dehydrating before it arrives in our storage facilities," said the engineer.
Then we separate the avocado in 20 kilo baskets of healthy and uniform avocados separated in weights ranging between 150 and 300 grams, according to the preference of the European market.
Strategy
Green West’s export period concentrates between October and March because Antioquia’s avocado production has a higher peak in this period. Thus, the company will combine its shipments with strawberries and carrots for the East.
"We need 150 hectares planted with carrots so we can ship two containers per week," said the manager of West Green.
The combination of products allows the company to export throughout the whole year. For example, the company has other work fronts in the town of Uramita (West) and La Pintada (Southwest), from where it ships Tahiti lime. They also ship yam and coconut from Uraba (Arboletes) and pineapple from San Juan de Uraba.
Official Bet
Even though this is a private initiative, the Ministries of Agriculture, Commerce, Industry and Tourism are developing programs to promote the cultivation of avocado. One of the national and strategic interest projects (Pines) is devoted to this fruit to identify and overcome the existing bottlenecks to export.
The idea is to achieve health eligibility in new markets and to achieve exporting 110 million dollars of this fruit in the next three years.
Public and private companies are working in Antioquia to export avocado. The bet is to have small producers engage efficiently so that everybody wins.
Source: elcolombiano.com