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Making the right moves
PICTURED—Mohammed Abbas, Fresh Del Monte
Mohammed Abbas, Fresh Del Monte’s senior vice-president for Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, discusses
comes from its teams spread across many countries.
the marketer’s response to the challenges of the past year,
Those great efforts spread our produce and fulfilled
and to shifting trends in the banana trade.
market demand with consistent quality. Fresh Del Monte has been making some major changes
by Liam O’Callaghan
in its banana business. What are these changes and what do you hope to achieve by making them?
@liamfruitnet
MA: Fresh Del Monte has spent years developing its banana sourcing strategy to cover numerous origins. With TR4 affecting plantations in the Philippines, we made bold moves to tap into new sources to support the Asian markets, which have been traditionally supplied by the Philippines along with Vietnam and Laos. Over the past two years we managed to develop a consistent supply of bananas from our operations across CECAB (Colombia, Ecuador, Central America and Brazil). Now, Fresh Del Monte Guatemalan bananas have a strong presence in the Japanese markets. We are also developing trade for Costa Rican bananas into Korea. In Hong Kong, we are gradually introducing bananas from Panama. There has been a slight shi in Asia’s banana trade over the past 12 months, with South-East Asian suppliers filling the gap le by declining exports from the Philippines. Will this trend continue and how is Fresh Del Monte positioned to respond? MA: We do think this trend will continue and we strongly believe that Vietnam and Laos in particular will continue to grow in production. We are closely monitoring the expansion plans of medium and large size farmers in these countries and are also pu ing plans in place to expand our production operations beyond the Philippines, but these are still in the early stages.
I
n what has been a year like
sector, and school closures had an
Asia accounted for 10 per cent of sales for Fresh Del
no other, how has Fresh Del
impact on the banana business.
Monte in 2019. Do you see this percentage growing? If so,
Monte’s banana business fared,
particularly in Asia?
where is this growth coming from?
worked around the situation by
MA: We are targeting further growth by diversifying
Mohammed Abbas: It has been a
channelling our fruit to various
our product range within the fresh produce category
challenging year for all markets,
destinations across Asia, the
and the value-added segment in existing markets.
not only Asia. The lockdowns,
Middle East, and even the East
social distancing, decline of the
Mediterranean.
hotel, restaurant and catering
18
Despite this, we remained agile in our approach and
The strength of Fresh Del Monte
The major growth will be in penetrating new markets through collaborations in China, India, and other markets across Asia-Pacific. _
fresh focus banana 2021
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18/05/2021 11:17
