Business, innovation and networking: FRUIT LOGISTICA

This year, the global fruit and vegetable industry professionals met in Berlin 5-7 February

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2025/5.

Alexander Stein
director
FRUIT LOGISTICA

The event attracted more than 91,000 participants and 23,500 exhibitors from the global fruit and vegetable sector. According to the official visitor survey, Fruit Logistica reached a new record in the number of successful business deals. Once again there was special focus on innovation at this year’s trade show.

Fruit Logistica 2025 dedicated more space than ever before to agricultural technology: the Smart Agri section had 36 exhibitors from 18 countries, pioneers in their own fields, with solutions such as AI for fruit yield forecasting, farm management software for precision farming, quality control tools, sustainable irrigation and pollination technologies.

Visitors cast their votes

There were nearly seventy entries in this year’s FLIA and FLIA Technology Innovation Awards, from which the jury selected five innovations for the final vote. The final decision was made by the visitors: they could cast their votes on the innovation they liked the best.

The Innovation Award finalists included an organic, perennial avocado from the Netherlands, irrigated exclusively by rainwater, and a year-round strawberry from Germany called ALDINA, an initiative of Aldi SÜD. There was a Hungarian innovation among the finalists of the Technology Innovation Award: ABZ Innovation’s drone with LiDAR-based position recognition system, which sprays vineyards and orchards safely and accurately without a GPS, reducing chemical use and protecting the environment.

Grand prize winner orange and AI

The FLIA Innovation grand prize was awarded to AMFRESH’s Onix orange and the FLIA Technology Innovation award went to Fermata for its Croptimus™ image analysis technology.

Onix oranges impressed trade visitors with their unique flaming orange and deep burgundy colour and their delicious, pigmented flesh. Grown in Spain, the fruit is special not only in appearance and intense flavour, but also in its outstanding antioxidant and vitamin content, and its long shelf life, which is a novelty in the citrus market.

Eye-catching appearance and valuable content – this is the Spanish Onix orange

Croptimus™ by Cyprus-based firm Fermata is a software-powered image analysis technology, which enables growers to detect plant diseases or pest infestations in greenhouses at an early stage. The system requires no additional hardware and works with camera systems or images taken with a mobile phone.

Save work, waste and input by using Croptimus™ image analysis technology

European Statistics Handbook 2025 published

The publication on the challenges and opportunities for the sector can be downloaded from the FRUIT LOGISTICA website

Published in collaboration with Fruitnet Media International and AMI, the handbook’s five key findings are:

1. Difficult economic situation for consumers: although wages increased in 2024, fruit and vegetable prices also elevated.

2. Weather extremes are impacting the industry: in 2024 night frosts, floods and torrential rains continued to be frequent, especially in central Europe and Valencia.

3. Lower operating costs, but continuing cost pressure: the costs of machinery, maintenance and labour increased and labour shortages remain a serious problem.

4. Geopolitical conflicts are influencing the sector: the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and the results of the EU elections also affected the agricultural policy climate.

5. Mixed results in fruit and vegetable production: fruit yields declined a little, but vegetable yields remained stable. //