Brazil expands opportunities for fruit exports to Canada

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Canada is currently only ranked 16th in the list of buyers of Brazilian products, but the export volume has been growing, notably of fruit.

Lucas Brotto is from a family that has been producing and exporting figs for more than 20 years. He recently decided to expand production to guava and a fruit that is little known to most Brazilians: atemoya, a hybrid of the sugar apple (“ata”) and the cherimoya.

“The atemoya is a very sweet fruit and its price is somewhat high in Brazil, compared to other fruits we are familiar with, like mango, melon, papaya. The atemoya is in a little higher class, but it is very much appreciated. I think we will consume much of the fruit in the coming years,” the producer says.

Brotto currently exports 60% of all his production. The main destination is Canada, which has become an important buyer of Brazilian fruit, such as melon, mango, papaya, lemon and fig.

“The great Brazilian advantage is the fact that we are in the southern hemisphere and harvests are the exact opposite of the northern hemisphere. Taking figs as an example, we are entering the harvest now, while Greece, Turkey and Mexico are at the end. And as Canada doesn’t have figs, it’s the perfect time for Brazil to step in because it’s the Brazilian harvest period,” points out Marcelo Oliveira, developer of new agricultural markets.

Most of Brazil’s fruit exports to Canada are made by plane, which favors product quality.

“Today we are able to deliver fruit from any Brazilian capital to the Canadian market in up to 36 hours, it arrives so fresh that Canadians can taste it, buy it and even pay a higher price, maybe because of this. This makes the fruit stand out in the exports agenda,” stresses Brazil-Canada Chamber of Commerce business manager Armínio Calonga Júnior.

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