It is hard to believe it has been almost a decade since the global financial crisis of 2008, a year when oil-rich Ecuador also grabbed headlines for defaulting on its debts. 

While back then as today the nation was the world's largest banana exporter, it was also slipping off a boom in pineapples since the introduction of the MD2 (Golden) variety, with a total of 5,000 hectares.

The default took its toll however, and along with high labor costs and an "oversupplied market", an industry leader said the total production area fell to 1,500 hectares in a short space of time.

National Association of Pineapple Growers of Ecuador (ASOPIÑA) president Roberto Castillo says in 2008 many pineapple farmers made the switch to other crops that weren't so demanding in terms of technology or labor, such as corn and palm oil.

"I think that was perhaps another tipping point as Ecuador's labor costs for pineapples is high," Castillo tells Fresh Fruit Portal.

"So little by little there was a boom in commodities, crops that required much less labor. It came up as an opportunity."

Despite this, he said pineapples were undergoing a resurgence in Ecuador thanks to increased interest from international markets, with production now at 3,300 hectares and growing.

It is usually markets like North America, Europe or Asia that tend to drive these kinds of recoveries, but in the case of Ecuadorian pineapples the export solution has actually been much closer to home.

"The freight from Ecuador to Chile is US$1,500 compared to US$4,500 for Europe, which leaves a much more attractive return for the grower," he said of opportunities in the South American country where demand is booming. 

In 2008, Chile received just 11% of Ecuador's pineapple exports but now it is the leading market receiving a third of of the volume.

Statistics from 2015 show Ecuador's exports were still a third lower than at the height of the boom (and the USA's purchases are now just a fifth of what they were back then), Chile's purchases more than doubled to around 25,000MT annually.

Other importing countries that weren't sourcing much of the product in 2008 include the U.K. and Argentina, but in 2015 they were Ecuador's second- and third-largest markets respectively with 9,538MT and 7,660MT.

"We have economic stability thanks to the dollar and that allows us to have good prices for pineapples in the country," Castillo says.

"Our goal is to keep improving, to grow like the crop and be able to offer our production to more international markets."

The executive tells Fresh Fruit Portal the industry is subject to market demands and requirements on a daily basis, with pesticide residue limits the most common topic of discussion with importers.

"We are obliged to innovate with new techniques, chemicals and even by employing organic techniques - the latter is probably the clearest trend to deal with. All this is part of our objective to continue being in the market with quality pineapples," Castillo says. 

He adds that many years ago the country's leading expoter Terra-sol, where Castillo incidentally also works, trialed organic pineapple production but the crisis put the brakes on that project. 

"We have seen that the organic market has started to rise with strength amongst consumers, and we have a proposal with a European [buyer] who is willing to invest in Ecuador to develop this product, but currently there are no organic pineapples in Ecuador."

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