Peru’s fruit exports have been increasing in the past few years and they have been successfully developing their international markets and becoming a strong competitor of other Latin American countries. Grupo Campo Verde is a Peruvian export company that works with three main products: avocados, Valencia oranges, and mandarins of the Satsuma and W. Murcott varieties.
The company’s foreign trade manager José Guillermo Abanto Estrada says: “Avocado is a very important product for us because it has such a strong position in the market. Our company is located in the avocado- and citrus-producing region of Peru and we see high performance, high demand, and good prices. The market for avocados is of course international and we ship a good amount of our product to China. But, we only produce the avocados six to seven months out of the year, so we can’t sustain our company year-round on just avocados. That is why we also work a lot with the Satsumas and W. Murcott tangerines, as well as the Valencia oranges. They have a much lower price than the avocados do but they always sell, and the demand is always good. So they are enormously helpful in keeping the company running and keeping all of our expenses covered throughout the year.”
This year, the company became the first Peruvian company to begin exporting the Satsuma mandarins to Japan. Juan Taba, the company’s general manager, says: “Shipping our Satsuma mandarins to Japan for the first time was a really important achievement for us. It has taken us 10 years of hard work. The cooperation between the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture, the National Agrarian Health Service of Peru (SENASA) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF) in Japan managed to finally open the market for the Satsuma tangerines from Peru.”
“The first shipment was achieved due to our company’s participation in Foodex Japan in 2018, and 2019. We are also very fortunate to have gotten great support from Promperu, and Mr. William Valderrama, who is an agriculture specialist in the commercial section of the Peruvian embassy in Japan,” Juan says.
For now, the company is only exporting their Satsumas to Japan. José explains that exporting avocados to Japan is very complicated because they have different standards than the other markets do: “For avocados, we do our maturity testing based on the amount of oils and the amount of dry matter present in the fruit. Usually, avocados are harvested when they have 21.5% dry matter, but Japan wants their avocados to be at 23% dry matter – meaning the avocados would have to be harvested later than usual, at a higher maturity level. There is demand coming from Japan for avocados, but for us it just isn’t feasible to export there.”
José concludes: “The Japanese market is very demanding because they have many protocols in place that have to be followed perfectly by us, as producers and exporters, to be able to export there. This year we harvested about 70 tons of our Satsuma mandarins and exported them to Japan and Hong Kong. Next year our production will be much higher – we are now on a growing program for Japan and will be harvesting 1.5 million kilos of Satsumas, beginning in March 2020.”
For more information: 
Juan Taba Guerrero.
Grupo Campo Verde
Tel:+947374333
Email: juan.taba@grupocampoverde.com.pe
José Guillermo Abanto Estrada
Grupo Campo Verde
Tel: +51947375200
Email: produccion@grupocampoverde.com.pe
www.grupocampoverde.com.pe