The Southern Hemisphere Association of Fresh Fruit Exporters has announced the election of Pipfruit New Zealand's Alan Pollard as its new president.
The election took place during the Annual General Meeting of the association on the 9 February 2017 in Berlin, during the 25th Fruit Logistica.
The presidency of New Zealand takes over from the presidency of Sergio Del Castillo from ProCitrus, representing Peru, with the vice-presidency taken over by Dr Konanani Liphadzi of Fruit South Africa.
“SHAFFE is a unique pre-competitive opportunity, to work on trade topics which do matter to the entire Southern Hemisphere and create a common market understanding,' said Pollard. 'A new set of priorities ranging from gathering business intelligence – monitoring policy developments in key markets and improving the visibility of Southern Hemisphere produce, will help us to maintain the focus on things which really do matter for the entire industry.”
Southern Hemisphere countries, which include Argentina, Australia, Chile, New Zealand Peru, South Africa and Uruguay, are amongst the most active exporters worldwide, and these countries came together to form the Southern Hemisphere Association of Fresh Fruit Exporters (Shaffe) in the early 1990s.
With 8.2m tonnes of temperate fruit exports in 2015 worth US$11bn, the Southern Hemisphere suppliers comprise 20 per cent of the global fruit export market.
The meeting concluded that with a changing trading environment, a forum such as SHAFFE is essential to understanding the key challenges for the fresh fruit trade originating in the Southern Hemisphere in future.
The next years are expected to be strongly shaped by the results of the upcoming Brexit negotiations and its implication on regulatory changes in the field of tariffs, plant health and food safety, while the governing style of the new US administration needs to be followed up closely and will have an impact on the future market access conditions for fresh fruits.
Shaffe said it would therefore focus on gathering business intelligence and monitoring of current policy developments, but also continue to work on the perception of Southern Hemisphere produce as a great asset to Northern Hemisphere markets.
Finally, the members of Shaffe thank Sergio Del Castillo for his dedicated work during his presidency in the past years, which 'significantly shaped' the work of the association.
