During Fruit Logistica, Rene Noordam presented the Piña Golden Princess single box for Dominican pineapple. The single box has now arrived in the Dominican Republic, and the exclusive packaging is ready for introduction. “We focus purely on the air cargo market and don’t want to win on price, but on flavour. We harvest on order, and don’t have stocks in Europe.”
The Dutchman discovered the potential of the Dominican Republic for fruit production, and started the company Dominican Gold Fruit with local fruit specialist Edmundo Guzman. “Air cargo is expensive, so we worked on lowering packaging weight in recent months. This was a good period for the Dominicans to get the hang of packaging,” Rene says.
“I've now sent out the first mails that we’re ready to start with this luxury packaging, and the first orders have arrived. During the fair in Berlin, we immediately gained interest. With this packaging we can make a good name for ourselves on the market, both with supermarkets and with wholesalers. Most interest is currently from France, Italy, Spain and the UK.”
The pineapple production in the Dominican Republic went well. “Some companies are affected by glassiness, but not us. Besides, flavour of the pineapple is excellent. We conducted a few blind flavour tests with Dominican and Costa Rican pineapples, and 90 per cent chose the Dominican ones,” Rene says. “We’ll soon also introduce the new open-top boxes, which we’ll sell under the Discovery Fruit brand.”
The Dominican adventure has now left the Dutchman wanting more. “The country offers so much potential as a fruit production country, but much product is now still lost post-harvest. We’ve been doing Fairtrade organic bananas for a while now, and in about a month we’ll start with greenskin avocados, we’ve started the production of okra and a sweet potato project, and we’re now preparing for a watermelon project for during the winter months.”