Fresas Nuevos Materiales has opened a new research centre in El Rompido, Huelva that will serve as the hub for its rapidly expanding berry breeding business.
The €2.5m facility comprises a 2.5ha trial farm with two fully automated greenhouses, a state-of-the-art laboratory, warehouses and office space.
During the inauguration ceremony, FNM president Domingo Camacho Cerezo highlighted the commercial success of the company’s three varieties, Primoris, Rábida and Rociera, which now make up 34 per cent of strawberry production in Huelva.
“This project has benefited from the support of the entire sector and reflects the results of a job well done in difficult times,” he said, adding that it would enable the company to compete on an equal footing with large breeders in the US and Europe.
Rociera, in particular, has enjoyed considerable success since its launch two years ago, overtaking Primoris to become FNM’s biggest selling variety with a market share of 19.3 per cent. This makes it the closest challenger to Fortuna, the University of Florida variety, which accounts for 37 per cent of production.
FNM was created by Huelva’s leading strawberry producers in 1998 with the aim of developing high quality proprietary varieties adapted to local growing conditions and avoid having to pay licenses to overseas breeding programmes.
Camacho noted that the breeder’s ultimate goal is to reach a market share of 80-90 per cent in Huelva. With an annual output of 360,400 tonnes, Huelva is home of the second biggest concentration of strawberry production in the world behind California.
Buoyed by the success of its strawberry varieties, FNM took the decision five years ago to invest in a raspberry breeding programme and is due to register its first variety later this year.
