Argentine pome fruit is renowned worldwide, as the country is currently the leading exporter of pears in the Southern Hemisphere and the fifth largest exporter of apples worldwide. 

Patagonia Food CEO Nicolás Sánchez, who also acts as president of the Argentine Chamber of Integrated Fruit Growers (CAFI) addresses 2024 projections and lessons learned for 2023.

How would you define the 2023 pome fruit season?

We do more pears than apples for export and we had a good season, we started with low volume because we had strong frosts, so we did not have much volume.

But the European market was quite good, the drop in logistic costs helped and in general, all markets worked stably.

What are the main challenges currently facing the industry?

This year's quality has been good and the challenges are related to climate change, with a late winter that stalled fruit growth and made current calibers a little smaller than average.

We are now facing a climatic challenge, where we are going through very high temperatures.

How many acres of apples and pears are currently planted?

We have approximately 98,842 acres in Argentina between pears and apples.

What is the projected volume for 2024?

We estimate that we should have around 750,000 tons of apples and pears in total.

What are the main markets?

We have three markets in similar proportions, the domestic market, Latin America, and the northern hemisphere.

We are in negotiations with new trading partners, particularly we are working with India, because we have quite high tariffs to enter said market. We are also working on the protocol with China, although we have a protocol that is quite new, the volume is growing.

What innovations are you working on?

Regarding the technology available today for packaging and cooling, we are using the same technology that is available in the world. We are waiting to see how to automate the harvest, I think it is something that is still pending.

How do you project the pome industry in the coming years?

Fifteen years ago we had 61,776 acres with an average productivity of 55,115 pounds per acre and today we are above 99,208, which means that the production units we have today are more efficient.

I believe that, if we start to walk a path of competitiveness and Argentina becomes an export-friendly country, we can recover productive acres, because we already have the technology, the knowledge, and the markets and we have an area with plenty of water availability to be able to produce.

What commercial strategy are you going to develop this year?

We are working on a brand to promote consumption in the domestic market since it is very important. We want to reposition apples and pears as healthy products.