On May 17, Colombia will send its first shipment of Hass avocado to South Korea’s capital after the Asian country approved the entry of this Colombian product. According to ProColombia, the shipment will be carried out by the Antioquia company Cartama and it will consist of 1.6 tons of Hass avocado grown in Guatica, Risaralda. The company will ship the product to Seoul by air.
Cartama was already the first company to ship the fruit to China and Japan, and now it will also be the first to ship Hass avocado from Colombia to South Korea.
“South Korea’s sanitary regulations are quite strict. Fortunately, we have been able to have our cultivation free of quarantine pests for more than 1 year thanks to the joint sanitary diplomacy work carried out with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Commerce, the ICA, ProColombia, and Corpohass. We will reach that destination with the help of our partner, Mission Produce, the most important American firm in fruit distribution which controls 75% of the avocado distribution,” stated Ricardo Uribe, CEO and founder of the business.
“Paving the way is always a very difficult task, but we are quite optimistic. We want to position ourselves in South Korea as a reliable source, enable more orchards for export, and lower our dependence on sales to Europe.”
Uribe also has his sights set on reaching Indonesia and Chile, one of the biggest avocado consumers in the world.
The president of ProColombia, Flavia Santoro, said that the Colombian Hass avocado, which is supplied 12 months a year, has established itself as one of the great stars of the Colombian agro-export basket. “The country’s health diplomacy will continue to open up multiple opportunities so the fruit can continue growing at double digits in the coming years. We at ProColombia will continue to accompany the sector to obtain early victories and to achieve a great position in Asia and the world,” Santoro said.
According to data from the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane), avocado exports have increased by 91% in the first quarter of the year over the same period of last year, as sales have gone from 33.6 million dollars in the first three months of 2020 to 64.2 million in the same period of 2021.
The largest buyers in the first quarter of the year were the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, Argentina, and Russia.
Source: semana.com