The processing plant, which costs $2 million, will be ready by the end of October this year, and it will begin processing the American Beauty pitahaya produced by the project, which will be harvested between November 2022 and March 2023.
The processing plant will be located in an area of 8,000 to 10,000 m² and will have a processing capacity of 3 to 4 tons per hour. It will be located in the same area in which there are already 80 hectares of this fruit planted (kilometer 883 of the North Pan American highway, between Chiclayo and Piura), stated Diego Rodriguez Valverde, CEO of R Coorp and founder of the Proyecto Terra. He also said, at the end of the year, that they would start planting 80 more hectares of the same variety.
The objective of the Proyecto Terra is to install 60 processing plants for fresh, frozen products, and final product lines, Rodriguez Valverde said.
"We are practically going to create an entire industry in the area to export products of all kinds and not just fresh products. We think that, after installing the plant to process pitahaya, we'll install other plants to process rambutan, açaí, and other products,” he said.
R Coorp has been working hand in hand with the National Agrarian Health Service (Senasa) and the Association of Agricultural Producers Guilds of Peru (Agap) to move forward the protocols for exports of these products to China and the United States, Rodriguez Valverde stated.
This business model (Proyecto Terra) has generated quite a lot of expectations in and outside the country. Different governments have contacted them to promote this initiative and to generate development in agro-industrial issues in their respective countries.
Source: agraria.pe