With the aim of increasing the export of organic bananas, Promperú is carrying out a series of activities via the Macroregional Office of Piura and the Commercial Offices Abroad (OCEX) in collaboration with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the NGO Cedepas Norte.
This year, producers received support in their participation in the Fruit Logistica fair, as well as in virtual meetings with buyers from France, Switzerland, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, and Germany.
They also carried out a commercial tour of Europe that allowed them to better understand food consumption trends, evaluate the costs, prices, promotion, and certification of Peruvian bananas, and boost the image of the fruit as a quality product grown under socially and environmentally sustainable conditions.
The tour also allowed them to discover the possibilities of using the Peruvian fruit to market organic banana puree for children. The agricultural cooperatives APPBOSA, Usuarios Río y Valle, and APBOSMAM formed the Nor Chira Cooperative to produce this product intended for the European market.
"After visiting some supermarkets in Europe where we saw banana puree on the shelf, we decided to use the product that is not suitable for the fresh market, which easily amounts to 25% of the yield, to make this product," stated Miguel Borrero, director of Apbosman.
The first container with 22 tons of organic banana puree was shipped to Germany a few days ago. "This is an organic food product for children and babies. You don't find that easily in supermarkets. That is our differential value," he stated.
More than 40 organizations of small-scale banana producers hope to join the newly established Cooperativa Nor Chira to benefit from economies of scale and meet international demand, he said.
Piura is the largest producer of organic bananas in Peru, accounting for 60% of the national production with 9,927 hectares of the 16,500 organic certified hectares in the country, followed to a lesser extent by Tumbes, Lambayeque, and La Libertad.
Source: gob.pe