Soloberry is a company founded in 2012 in Moguer, Huelva, which is devoted to the marketing of red fruits supplied by associated growers based in the province of Huelva, the Portuguese Algarve and in the north of Morocco. In the last financial year, the company made 50 million Euro in revenue and its short-term goals are to boost the distribution of raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and strawberries in Europe, to consolidate the newly-opened markets in the Middle East and to increase its shipments to Asia.
Graham Blake, who is the manager of Soloberry in Spain, is the founder of this young company; however, his connection with Huelva dates back to 1965, when he decided to create a marketer to supply berries from Huelva's fields to British supermarkets. This activity remained unchanged until four years ago, when his associated producers agreed to extend the distribution to markets other than the UK.
This objective is being met, as confirmed by Blake. Above all, he said, "because Soloberry already exports red fruits to the main European countries, to Scandinavia, and indirectly, through the Netherlands, our berries have also reached destinations as distant as Dubai, Qatar, Doha and Kuwait. For the new campaign, we want to consolidate our shipments to Asia."
Adelita club, by Planasa
Although the production volume consists of as much strawberries (40%) as raspberries (40%), Graham Blake acknowledges that "integration into the Planasa Raspberry Club with its flagship variety Adelita has facilitated the growth of Soloberry." The appearance of this raspberry variety "has changed the context of what we knew in this field. We have gone from some very delicate varieties that we had to put in cold storage so that they could produce during the winter months to plants that are adapted to our climate, which yield fruit of a high quality and of a great calibre, that can give us two harvests per year and which can be marketed very well because they also have a long post-harvest shelf life."
Blake explains that being able to grow this variety from Planasa "has allowed us to increase our raspberry sales across Europe and has also enabled us to open new markets in more distant countries. We are shipping Adelita raspberries to Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, something that was unthinkable three years ago."
Soloberry's technical director, Juan José Ollero, recalls that "the first ones to join the Adelita Club were Cuna de Platero and us; later, Arofa, Frutas Borja and Surberry also became members. The five partners that integrate this club have the exclusive rights over Adelita raspberries in Spain, Portugal and Morocco."
Ollero says that the development of Adelita's acreage has been "amazing" over the last four years. While in 2012 Soloberry's partners cultivated about 1,000 plants of the Adelita and Lupita varieties as a test, the following year, after "finding out that the one that was most interesting for us was the first one, since it was also productive in winter, we acquired almost half a million plants. In 2014, this figure exceeded one million and a half; in 2015, it stood at 1,700,000 and the forecast is to have reached over 4 million plants in 2016."
500 hectares of blueberries in 2020
Regarding other berries, manager Graham Blake says that "we are very interested in finding new varieties. In the plot devoted to blueberries we have an exclusive improvement program for Europe and North Africa that is being developed in Australia and is called Early Blue. With these new varieties, which are already being tested in Huelva and which stand out for their precocity, taste and good size, we intend to reach 500 hectares in 2020.
As for strawberries, another important product for Soloberry, Blake mentions the improvement programs of collaborating companies such as Planasa or the Italian CIV and states that "together we are working to find strawberry varieties for the future."
Although most of the strawberries from Soloberry come from the north of Morocco, "the acreage of our associated producers in Huelva amounts to about 200 hectares. In any case, we believe that the area and number of plants could increase exponentially over the next few years by planting a strawberry variety that can meet the characteristics demanded by the markets, while being interesting to our producers," concludes manager Graham Blake.
