Germany: ‘Many potential consumers for avocados’

Despite a great supply of mangoes and exotic fruits and great sales in Western Europe, there is still enough room for further development. With new marketing concepts and the launch of new varieties, the exotics business will continue to grow in the coming years, according to Thorsten Blasius, Managing Director of Bratzler & Co. GmbH. It is not for nothing that the importer and marketing specialist has had a modern new location in the Dutch ABC Westland business park for three years, where avocados, mangoes and kiwis are matured, sorted and packaged. And new expansion steps are already planned.

The logistics area in the Netherlands is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment

Marketing measures
The core competencies of Bratzler & Co. GmbH have changed completely since 2003. Together with his former partner Matthias Bratzler, Blasius gradually transformed the company from an import wholesaler with a full range to a specialist with a limited product portfolio - banana, kiwi, avocado and mango. A very clear decision, which came after many maturity tests in the years 2003-2005. “Due to the increasing demands on food safety, certifications and social standards, we have decided to concentrate on the core areas in which we had the most know-how at that time. This had to do mainly with maturing, sorting, packaging and marketing, and was steadily developed and expanded in the following years. An example of our different marketing concepts is our first brand 'Iss-es', which we launched in 2005.”

Large investments were made at the location in Karlsruhe and the company’s own import was built up. Creating long-term relationships with producers in South America, West Africa, Israel and Australia was an important development for an optimized value chain.

Bratzler & Co. has established itself over the years as a marketing specialist. Blasius: "Back in 2005, we started offering training for retailers and POS tasting (point-of-sale, red.). It was important to us to provide information about our products. We have designed customized brochures with elaboration about our products, and recipe books. This toolbox is still one of our marketing measures because consumers like to have information about the products and want to know where the products come from.

That's why we offer various traceability systems, with a QR code on the label for example, so the end user can look up the entire production story. One of our core competencies is certainly to show our customers how to highlight the versatility of each product and to offer a tailor-made marketing concept.”
 The team of Bratzler & Co KG. at their booth at Fruit Logistica in Berlin.
CEO Thorsten Blasius on the extreme right.

Constant expansion
The company Bratzler & Co. (formerly Gebr. Bratzler GmbH) was founded by the eponymous family as a wholesaler during the 20's and had a banana ripening and a peanut roasting plant. From 2003, the first experiments were carried out with the aim of being able to offer matured kiwis in Ready-2-Eat quality. About two years later, Matthias Bratzler and Thorsten Blasius introduced their own 'Iss es' brand and then kiwis, avocados and mangos were also launched in increasing quantities. To improve the entire process chain and the short distances to the port of Rotterdam, Bratzler & Co. put into operation a new large site in Poeldijk, on the Dutch industrial site ABC Westland. There are currently 19 ripening rooms available for ripening avocados, mangos and kiwis as well as several automatic sorting and packing lines. The next expansion step is the development of the so-called Caribbean avocado varieties, in addition to the existing range. Due in part to price and availability, it is currently still a niche product, says Blasius.