The paper code cannot be redeemed when browsing in private/incognito mode. Please go to a normal browser window and enter the code there
This content is copyright protected!
However, if you would like to share the information in this article, you may use the headline, summary and link below:
Title: Watch: the latest technology in operation at Chile’s largest cherry exporter
As part of his Nuffield Scholarship, Lorcan Allen visited the O’Higgin’s region of Chile to get an up close look at Chile’s most important export industry.
The reader loyalty code gives you full access to the site from when you enter it until the following Wednesday at 9pm. Find your unique code on the back page of Irish Country Living every week.
CODE ACCEPTED
You have full access to farmersjournal.ie on this browser until 9pm next Wednesday. Thank you for buying the paper and using the code.
CODE NOT VALID
Please try again or contact us.
For assistance, call 01 4199525
or email subs@farmersjournal.ie
If would like to speak to a member of our team, please call us on 01-4199525
Reset password
Please enter your email address and we will send you a link to reset your password
If would like to speak to a member of our team, please call us on 01-4199525
Link sent to your email address
We have sent an email to your address.
Please click on the link in this email to reset
your password. If you can't find it in your inbox,
please check your spam folder. If you can't
find the email, please call us on 01-4199525.
Email address not recognised
There is no subscription associated with this email
address. To read our subscriber-only content.
please subscribe or use the reader loyalty code.
This content is available to digital subscribers and loyalty code users only. Sign in to your account, use the code or subscribe to get unlimited access.
This content is available to digital subscribers and loyalty code users only. Sign in to your account, use the code or subscribe to get unlimited access.
Watch: the latest technology in operation at Chile’s largest cherry exporter
As part of his Nuffield Scholarship, Lorcan Allen visited the O’Higgin’s region of Chile to get an up close look at Chile’s most important export industry.
Welcome to Chile, where logistics are everything and cherries are big business. It may seem like a very simple business, but cherry production in Chile is at the very highest standards in terms of scale, automation and quality – making it the leading exporter on the planet. What’s remarkable about cherry production is that it lasts for just 10 weeks of the year, but is still the key fruit for most of the large fruit exporters in Chile in terms of profits.
Welcome to Chile, where logistics are everything and cherries are big business. It may seem like a very simple business, but cherry production in Chile is at the very highest standards in terms of scale, automation and quality – making it the leading exporter on the planet.
What’s remarkable about cherry production is that it lasts for just 10 weeks of the year, but is still the key fruit for most of the large fruit exporters in Chile in terms of profits.
As Chile is the world’s longest country, stretching more than 4000km from north to south, you will see most factories and warehouses located right beside the main motorway that runs from Santiago to Puerto Montt.
Agricola Garces
One such business is Agricola Garces, a family-owned fruit business turning over $600m in annual sales, that packages and exports kiwis, plums and stonefruit all over the world. But the heart of Agricola Garces is cherries. The company is one of the world’s largest cherry exporters and everything in the business is built around the small red fruit.
Most of the floor space at the Agricola Garces production facility, located in Chile’s sixth region, is taken up by a massive piece of technology for sorting and grading cherries along water processing lines, that is valued at more than $20m.
The grading machine has the capacity to process up to 50t of cherries per day and takes over 40 pictures of each cherry at the beginning of the process to sort them in terms of weight, colour and quality, before washing them and sending the cherries to the packaging lines at the other end of the factory.
Agricola Garces is currently producing 4m boxes of cherries a year, but the group is aiming to reach 8m boxes by 2020.
The ambitious growth target is all been driven by demand from China. Almost 85% of Agricola Garces cherry production is being exported to China, where consumers are paying way above the world market price – such is the demand for cherries. The small red berry is particularly in demand around the time of the Chinese New Year, as the colour of the fruit best represents the Chinese flag.
Investment
To meet this demand, Agricola Garces is in the midst of a five-year $140m investment programme to improve efficiency through automation and expand its own cherry farms. Right now it grows about 40% of its own cherries, with the remaining 60% coming from local farmers who consign the cherries to Agricola.
The initial phase of the investment programme has been completed with a fully-automated packaging line, now stacking and wrapping all boxes of fruit ready for shipping.
While the new automation has its benefits, electricity prices are very high in Chile and power has now become Agricola’s greatest operational cost.
As a result, the company still employs 400 full-time staff and 2,000 seasonal workers during the cherry season, because labour is still cheaper in Chile than full automation.
The cherry season in Chile lasts from just November through to mid-January, so for the remaining 9.5 months of the year, the $20m cherry sorting line lies dormant and is worked on by maintenance crews.
Counter-seasonal
When the Irish Farmers Journal visited Agricola Garces in late March, the lines were busy packing kiwis for export to Europe for the start of April, when the Italian kiwi crop will have ended and Europe will be in need of a southern hemisphere supply.
According to Tomas Bauer, commercial director with Agricola Garces, Chile’s position in the southern hemisphere has allowed it to flourish on the world market as a counter-seasonal fruit producer.
As fruit production falls out of season in major growing regions like California in the US and Italy in Europe, Chilean fruit begins to flow into the US and EU markets so that consumers have access to fruit all-year round.
This counter-seasonal supply arrangement has helped Chile become the largest fruit exporter in the southern hemisphere, and allowed family-run businesses like Agricola Garces develop into multi-million turnover companies.
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: