In 1976, Almeria had 3,440 hectares of greenhouses, a figure that skyrocketed in the following decades and reached 31,614 hectares in 2018, according to data from the Andalusian Ministry of Agriculture. However, during the years of the tourist boom, the price of rustic land skyrocketed in the province, bringing the total cost of a greenhouse to 220,000 euro per hectare. As a result, many producers in Almeria, such as Agroatlas Europa, reviewed their business plans and bet on other markets.
According to Ricardo Menoyo, the CEO of this company that has specialized for 20 years in the commercialization of agricultural products for supermarkets, the only way to compete against the large food producers in Europe was to imitate their model, internationalize the company, and settle in Morocco. “The big commercial operators are French and Dutch; they focus their production in Morocco, Senegal, Kenya, or Egypt. We understood the challenge and thought it was very interesting," he stated.
Agroatlas Europe analyzed food production and found that few companies worked with round green beans because it is a highly specialized product that requires a lot of labor and many hectares, both in the open field and greenhouse production. The company bet on this vegetable and was installed from the start in Morocco via a subsidiary to be able to compete against these large operators. According to the company, their bet has paid and they have become the second marketer of round green beans in Europe.
The company employs 1,500 people in the Agadir region and can have up to 2,000 workers in the peak season. Women make up 90% of the workforce, which has aid programs for all its employees, such as literacy courses, a social fund for school supplies, the worker's children's books, or daycare. In addition, the employees, with the support of the company, also distribute bags of food in nearby rural communities.
In total, Agroatlas has up to 700 hectares of round green bean cultivation: 300 that it exploits directly through its Moroccan subsidiary, Nature Growers, and another 400 hectares in the hands of some 40 independent producers, with whom it has sales and distribution agreements.
The round green beans of the Almeria company reach all the large supermarkets in Europe, such as Tesco, Albert Heijn, Waitrose & Partners, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, or Mercadona, in Spain. The five supermarkets in the United Kingdom, and their distributor in Holland, are the most attractive and profitable.
Source: elconfidencial.com