Europlátano was established over 30 years ago in the Valle de Aridane, on the island of La Palma, thanks to 43 farmers forming a partnership with a common commitment to the quality and care of their produce. Today, the organisation is made up of almost 700 associates and it has gone from producing 5,000,000 kg of bananas when it started out, to 75,000,000 kg at present, in addition to other fruit grown in the islands.
Since its establishment, Europlátano has sought to offer the highest quality Canary Island bananas through its brand Gabaceras, which adapts to the most demanding market requirements, but, at the same time, to generate profits for the farmers and encourage sustainable farming.
However, the market has become highly competitive owing to changes in consumption habits, a relentless competition from plantains, the concentration of the offer on the large distribution chains, the growing importance of sustainability for consumers and the professionalisation of the sector.
This new context demands a solid structure by the organisation that allows the entire production chain to be controlled, and one of the important projects in which the group is involved, which is positioning itself as a ripener and marketer on the Spanish mainland. In this way, its associate farmers may control the quality and the costs from the fields to the supermarket shelves, without any middlemen.
Currently, the company has seven packaging plants on the islands of Tenerife, La Palma and El Hierro, along with a capacity for ripening in Tenerife for the local market; and it manages its ripening installations in Alicante. This ripening capacity will be doubled over the next few weeks, when its new ripening shed in Bilbao starts operating, meaning that the whole country may be covered directly.
In this way, Europlátano has become the only Canary Island Banana Producer Organisation that covers the entire process independently. Its associate farmers, the only owners of the group, control each step from the fields to the households, an innovative business model without any middlemen that allows the quality to be controlled, as well as being as efficient as possible in costs.
However, this is not the only growth strategy for a company that is constantly evolving with versatility, dynamism and a spirit of improvement. Since 2016, it has been expanding its presence on new, profitable European markets, taking the quality and flavour of their bananas to consumers in Switzerland, Poland, and France. The aim over the next few months is to continue this expansion and to consolidate its presence beyond Spanish borders.
The Canary Island banana sector has faced up to many challenges and changes both in the production and in consumption trends in recent years. This has meant it is essential to work in a coordinated way within the company from the fields to the marketing to obtain a volume that provides strength on a market that the distribution is increasingly concentrating, efficiency in costs to minimise the effects of inflation, or certified quality and communication to create confidence in the consumers and clients.
