In recent years, Colombia’s fresh fruit export basket has diversified beyond bananas, with fruits such as purple passion fruit, Hass avocado, Tahitian lime and Cape gooseberry making rounds in main destination markets such as the U.S. and Europe.

With this, Colombian companies like Montana Fruits began supplementing its offerings with avocados and Tahitian lime, making diversification a successful trade strategy.

Mauricio Moranth, co-founder of Montana Fruits, tells FreshFruitPortal.com that his company first began exporting purple passion fruit from the Antioquia region, in northeast Colombia, to the Netherlands, Germany, France and the Nordic countries.

The firm also ships Hass avocado and Tahitian lime.

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Montana Fruits started operations in 2019, with a first shipment of 17 Hass avocado containers and another 20 of purple passion fruit. By  2022, avocado exports grew by over 400%, while purple passion fruit exports also rose by around 250%.

The company projects a 20-40% increase in shipments for 2024.

"Large supermarket distributors in Europe, such as Aldi and Lidl, when they saw the quality and certifications of our products, began to ask us what else we could send them. Our diversification allows us not to depend on a single fruit and also helps us to be consistent in our shipments, since each product has a peak or a commercial window to take advantage of," Moranth shares.

According to Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), fresh fruit exports rose 2% year-on-year in 2022.

Avocado, Tahitian lime, purple passion fruit, mango, oranges and pineapples lead the uptick.

The Netherlands, the U.S., Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and Belgium were the most popular destinations for Colombian fresh fruit in 2022.