San Miguel joins forces with Peru's La Calera to market fruit in North America
Argentina-based San Miguel has announced a partnership with major Peruvian citrus company La Calera to market fruit in the North American market. 
The development follows San Miguel's purchase of an equity stake in La Calera subsidiary Andean Sun Produce.
Under the deal, Andean Sun Produce will sell lemons, table grapes, avocados, oranges and mandarins from Peru, Argentina, Uruguay and South Africa, marketing 80% of Peru's late mandarin exports to the U.S. and Canada.
La Calera has more than 3000 hectares of fruit production on the Peruvian coast, growing mainly mandarins, grapes and avocados. This year it is expecting to produce over 100,000 metric tons (MT) of fruit.
San Miguel is one of the Southern Hemisphere's leading lemon exporters, but has recently been putting more focus on sweet citrus, last year acquiring major Peruvian mandarin producer Agrícola Hoja Redonda for US$64 million.
In total last year San Miguel exported more than 124,000MT of fresh fruit and processed more than 400,000MT of citrus.
Andean Sun Produce currently has offices in New Jersey and Florida, and over the next few months it plans to open a new office in California.
“This partnership will allow us to be even closer to our customers, delivering a better range of products to North American consumers," says San Miguel chief marketing officer Maximiliano D’Alessandro.
"Undoubtedly, having the experience of Andean Sun Produce is a differential value when it comes to meeting the needs of the North American market, which is highly relevant for San Miguel due to its scale and sophistication."
La Calera representative Estuardo Masias said: “We formed Andean Sun Produce dba GoldCup Fresh more than 10 years ago with the purpose of improving costs in the commercial operation.
"The partnership with San Miguel gives us exactly that, a wider range of citrus fruits with increased efficiency in the offer. We have great empathy with San Miguel, with whom we share the same long-term philosophy in this complex business.”
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