by Maggie Giuffrida, The Produce News
Robinson Fresh has carefully crafted its business practices to ensure that supply availability for pineapples is not compromised. “The dual country strategy that Robinson Fresh has in place for pineapple allows us to diversify supply production and risk whenever weather events hit one region or another,” said Category General Manager Jose Rossignoli of product grown in Mexico and Costa Rica. “In addition, Mexico affords a much shorter supply chain to the United States compared with Costa Rica. In general, Mexican pineapples take less than 24 hours from the point of harvest to the time it reaches our McAllen, TX, service center, while Costa Rica requires a longer supply chain. This flexibility also provides the ability to facilitate last-minute requests from our customers.”
At this time, the MD2 Golden pineapple is the dominant variety in the marketplace with great success at the consumer level. Robinson Fresh’s pineapple program has experienced double-digit growth every year over the past five years, with over 30 percent growth in 2015.
Rossignoli added that Robinson Fresh’s commitment to across-the-board quality has helped dispel misconceptions that pineapples from Mexico are of lesser quality.
The company also sources limes from Mexico. “While Veracruz, Mexico, is the highest producing region, and one of our primary sources, our strategy has been to diversify our sourcing regions. Robinson Fresh also sources from Oaxaca, Colima and Yucatan, helping ensure supply when any one given region experiences a strong weather event that disrupts the crop or prevents from harvesting,” he stated.
An important part of the company’s lime program is the focus on consistent supply, color and size as well as being able to supply customers with unique or customer-specific packs. “We also continue to increase our organic lime supply by adding new suppliers to our base or transitioning current conventional fields into organic supply as the demand for organic limes has increased,” Rossignoli added.
Rossignoli said mangos are “much more nomadic compared to limes. To support our year-round mango program, Robinson Fresh sources mangos from Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru.”
Although bulk avocados account for a majority of the sales pounds and are growing at a rapid rate, Rossignoli said packaged avocados are growing faster due to the convenience of bundling. “This led us to develop a three-count gusset bag for our Green Giant Fresh avocados,” he said.
On the branding side, Rossignoli said, “Two consumer brands, in addition to our own proprietary brand, are utilized to service our customer needs. We package avocados under the Green Giant Fresh brand, limes and pineapples under the Tropicana brand, and our proprietary brand, Happy Chameleon, is on all our tropicals except for avocados.”
Source: The Produce News