Importing chestnuts
The company plants more organic trees every year. Inovfruit has orchards in the southwest of France, in the Dordogne region. “But we also import from Spain and Chile, where we have strong connections with Chilean farmers, because we cannot yet produce enough volumes ourselves. So we actually have two seasons, because the French season starts in October, but the chestnuts from Chile are harvested in April, which is when our second season starts. We import these chestnuts fresh, and process them in our factory in France,” Dominique explains.
“The quality of the chestnuts from Chile and Spain is the same as for the ones from France. They all belong to the Castanea Sativa species. But we take care to select special varieties, giving fruits with a lot of taste. In fact, in Chile they have fewer pests,” Dominique continues. They are safe away from cynips, a little insect from China that arrived in Europe about 6 years ago, causing a lot of damage in European orchards.
About 80 per cent of our product is exported. Germany is our biggest sales market, but we also export to Belgium, Japan, Australia, the US, the UK, Israel, Greece and Italy.”
Processing
“After the cold peeling process, we vacuum-pack the chestnuts, and then we steam-cook them. Because we cook them after vacuum-packing them, the flavour is preserved better. This also results in a softer chestnut - they won’t be as dry as when you cook them without vacuum-packing them first.” Because the chestnuts are vacuum-packed and cooked, they could almost be called a convenience product. They are ready-to-eat for consumers. “The chestnuts can be eaten instantly or added to potatoes or any other vegetable, and they are particularly good with pumpkin. It is a very healthy type of food, healthier than potatoes,” Dominique says.“We are quite fussy about which varieties we use, but because of that, our chestnuts have the best flavour. We do not use cheap, easy-to-peel chestnuts. We prefer to have flavourful chestnuts instead. The prices for fresh chestnuts have increased significantly in recent years, because of the lack of production. Additionally, the way we process the chestnut is also quite expensive. But it results in a good, affordable product. Our sales and turnover increase every year,” Dominique concludes.
For more information:
Dominique BeaumontInovfruit
Tel: +33 553 804 808
d.beaumont@inovfruit.com
www.inovfruit.com