Macfrut 2009 – Innovation and global trends

On 9 October, the 26th Macfrut exhibition and fair closed its gates in Cesena, Italy. The first European-level summit of the fruit sector was also held at the 3-day event. At the most important event of the vegetable and fresh fruit sector more than 21,500 visitors were registered from 80 countries, and according to Domenico Scarpellini, the president of Cesena Fiera 700 companies were represented at the 30,000-m² venue. It was revealed that the biggest problems were unpredictably changing high-yield and low-yield seasons, and the storage and transportation of rapidly perishing fruits. The world’s fruit and vegetable production grew by 17 percent in the past few years, while in Europe it decreased from 70 million tons to 60 million in the past eight years. Italy is the biggest player with a 30-percent market share in Europe, followed by Spain (25 percent) and France (16 percent). Apple is the most popular fruit and southern fruits are coming up after a few years of orange crisis. Paulo Bruni, the president of Fruit and Vegetables Services Center (CSO) told that a joint European registration system was needed, which could react on a daily basis to the volumes produced and sold, thereby creating more balanced global trends. An EU-level centre for quality controlling and monitoring subsidies was also necessary.