Polycrisis in the fruit-vegetable sector – participants were looking for solutions at the 2023 Fruit Logistica

Guest writer:
Réka Pónyai
marketing referent
Zöldség Világ Kft.

Unfortunately the collective booth of the Agricultural Marketing Centre is getting smaller year after year, and this time only 10 Hungarian fruit and vegetable producers and traders felt they had to be there.

Philippe Binard, general delegate of Freshfel Europe analysed the European market situation, talking about the polycrisis and its impacts. European fruit and vegetable growers are unable to cope with the rapidly rising production costs, and they are facing lots of other problems too. He explained that we are in the middle of a deglobalisation process: consumers need to get used to eating locally grown fruit and vegetable, for instance because of Covid and the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy.

Unfortunately, only 10 Hungarian producers were represented in the collective booth of the Agricultural Marketing Centre

Sustainability, environmental protection and automation

This year sustainability, environmental protection and automation were in the spotlight at Fruit Logistica. There is great pressure on the sector to cut costs and reduce its environmental impact. On the last day of the trade show – the Start-up Day – the world’s 20 most innovative technology start-ups presented their products, projects and ideas. These included an artificial intelligence based platform that helps to predict shelf life (Freshness), warn about food safety risks (iComplai), and facilitate the cooperation between chains (Obortech).

Italian company Carton Pack brought boxes made from Social Plastic® rPET. There were lots of exhibitors who came to Fruit Logistica with certified organic products. The organisers started a programme called Organic-Route, which helped visitor to get in touch with the 184 certified producers who were present from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the USA.

This years buzzwords are sustainability, environmental protection, automation

Gold medal winner snack pepper

This year, Fruit Logistica Innovation Award went to sweet snack peppers with tropical aromas

The silver medal went to IDEAL cantaloupe, a new innovation by another Dutch company, Syngenta Seeds. Thanks to the patented Harvest Indicator solution, the change in the colour of the rind indicates if the product is ready for harvest. Spanish firm Anecoop went home with the bronze medal for Brocomole ¿Y si? de Bouquet, a guacamole sauce which contains 50% broccoli – the water need of this vegetable is 50% smaller than avocado’s. //

Tomato land

One of the innumerable tomato growers present at Fruit Logistica was Den Berk Délice, a Belgian company founded in 2014.

They brought their latest product, a cocktail tomato called Miss Délice. Visitors had the chance to taste it and they could tell how much they liked it by dropping the tomato’s core in the test tubes marked Love it, Like it and Leave it. ///