The apple imports of India from Chile have been successful this season. After testing the waters last year, one exporter from Chile managed to send over 150 containers this year while simultaneously building relationships in Brazil. This led to another 200 containers of apples being shipped to India this season.
According to Saurabh Tanwar, CEO of Fruitways Chile, their season was a satisfying one. For Latin American apple growers and exporters, the most obvious markets are the other South and Central American ones: “The season of apples 2021 was a success in terms of apples trade, compared to the last season where many traders had losses. Although this year was successful, many importers faced barriers when importing apples to the Indian market, as we were competing with the Central American and Latin American markets. Most of the exporters from Chile will prefer to export their apples to Colombia, Ecuador, Dominican Republic and other Central- and Latin American markets due to the lower transit time and fast payment system. Basically exporters are avoiding the risk to send their produce on a 45 to 55 days transit and a longer payment term to India.”
Fruitways Chile however, has a special focus on India due to the mother company being located in the market: “Trying to avoid the risk wasn’t the case for us. Despite the barriers that were in place, demand in India was rather high and thus Fruitways Chile has managed to export 150 containers of apples to our mother company Aftab & Co. based in Bangalore. Still, most of our shipments were exported to Chile. Also we’ve teamed up in Brazil with Rasib & Schio to bring extra volumes to India, which consisted of approximately 200 containers.”
When speaking of the most popular imported varieties, Tanwar states they’ve managed to introduce a new variety to the Indian market, which he claims isn’t easy in the Indian culture. “As India is a very closed cultural country, bringing something new to the market is a challenge in itself and can take years to develop. As always, India loves the red apples and the most popular Gala and Red Delicious family is always beloved and appreciated by Indian wholesale customers to Aftab & Co. However, since we’re not afraid of taking on a new challenge, we were the first to introduce the Fuji Nishima & Fuji Suprema apples to the Indian markets and succeed.”
Tanwar decided to make the switch from Polish apples to the Chilean market after having dealt with quality issues in a very challenging year for the Polish produce: “As always in India, a fresh crop is always appreciated. The European apple season starts parallel with the Indian season. When looking at suppliers from Europe, most of the apples imported to India are from Italy and Poland. However, the quality of Polish apples three years ago wasn’t appreciated by the Indian consumer, although to be fair, this was mostly due to terrible weather conditions in Poland. Indian consumers did appreciate the Italian apples and started calling them the apples from the Alps. This season Italy has supplied about 2000 Containers to the Indian markets. Compared to Europe, Latin America has pushed almost double the number of the apples from the EU. Thanks to better quality, great weather conditions and hardly any competition with the other side of the world. By the time Chile starts exporting their apples, the quality of European apples has diminished. Only Italian apples seem to still have the quality that’s expected by Indian consumers.”
“Overall it was a good season. Last year was a test, as we were still thinking of opening our venture here in Chile instead of working from Poland. This was the first season Fruitways had set up in Chile and we’ve built strong alliances in Brazil. That in itself has been extraordinary work, in my opinion. As a result, our mother company Aftab & Co. has become one of the top 5 importers in India. We’ll still aim to improve though, and hopefully we can move to the number one spot in the next two years.” Tanwar concludes.
For more information:
Saurabh Tanwar
Fruitways Chile
Tel: +56 9 8894 6256
Email: saurabh@fruitways.pl