Simba

Simba, a subsidiary of Italian fresh produce giant GF Group, has revealed it will begin marketing imported, premium-class exotic fruit including bananas and pineapples under its own brand from the start of 2012.

The company, which recently terminated a long-standing agreement to market products under the Del Monte brand in southern Europe and the Mediterranean region, made the announcement during a press conference held at this year's Macfrut trade fair in Cesena, Italy.

The new label, it said, will be the focus of major investment in terms of marketing and communications during the coming years.

The name of the brand will be officially unveiled at the beginning of January.

Backed by sister company Fruttital, which manages the group's distribution and logistics, Simba said it wanted to continue building its reputation among existing and new customers for tropical products sourced from countries including Colombia and Costa Rica.

The company's commercial director Alessandro Canalella commented: 'We will distribute bananas and pineapples using our brand in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Slovenia, where we are present with a strong network of companies controlled by GF Group.'

'Innovation in this sector is a difficult goal to pursue, but we want to try,' he continued. 'A number of solutions for marketing bananas and pineapples using our own brand are currently being studied, solutions which differ from those offered to the market up until now.'

Marketing exotics under its own brand represented a major shift in commercial policy for the company, said Paolo Mauti, managing director of Fruttital.

'It's an challenging opportunity that will keep us very busy and full of enthusiasm,' he said. 'We are also not ruling out the possibility that this new experience could serve as a pilot project for developing other product launches in future.'

Fruttital currently ripens and distributes around 5m cartons of bananas each year, as well as marketing 42,000 tonnes of pineapples per annum.

In total, the company distributes 263,000 tonnes of fresh produce each year.

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