Albert García, an executive from Ronda Fruits, explains to Fruit Today how the trend for average quality produce is disappearing
Consumers are going to the two extremes: there are those who are looking for good produce at a high price or there are those who buy fruit according to its price. “On our stand we have seen how average quality fruit is no longer in such demand. This year, specifically, there is a stronger demand for higher quality fruit. And within this segment, we can find top-range cherries.”
The melon is the opposite case: “It is the only fruit that we have been able to diversify in up to five qualities, because we consider that it has buyers for all the different needs: HORECA, street markets, supermarkets, etc.”
Moreover, in the middle of the stone fruit season, Ronda Fruits is one of the companies on the market with the greatest high-quality offer due to its excellent trade relations with the most important company from Lerida: Fruits de Ponent. For this category alone, it has two stands, with emphasis on the OKI flat peach.
When the autumn-winter season starts, the company will have some exclusive productions from Cadiz, such as violet turnips, courgettes and Palermo peppers.
The company holds the local produce badge and accordingly García emphasises that “the Bouquet papaya season has been based on this type of production, as it comes from Almeria and it has been easy to distinguish it from produce arriving by plane or ship.”
Ronda Fruits has always been a company that has opted for marketing prestigious brand names (Bouquet, Fashion, Oki, etc.), to which it adds its own such as Ronda Fruits, Ronda Verde and Ronda Fruits Bio.
Regarding its infrastructures, over the past year it has incorporated a new stand, making a total of 6 in hall C. All of this will allow a possible restructuring process in the autumn, since one of the stands will be completely devoted to ecological produce. Currently, the company is in the process of changing the signs on all its sales outlets to the new corporate image that they started using last year.
From its very beginnings, the company has been closely linked to the export business, and this is its most important sales channel, with 60% of the company’s business.
