One of the Mediterranean’s largest fresh fruit and vegetable importers is to build a brand new warehouse to the south of Seville
Fruit and vegetable importer Gruppo Orsero wants to increase its turnover in Spain and Portugal by €100m within the next five years with the opening of a new coldstorage and packing centre in Seville.
The Italian-owned group revealed it has made a “preparatory investment” to secure a site in Dos Hermanas, just to the south of the city.
From there, it plans to continue the impressive sales growth that Spanish subsidiary Hermanos Fernández López (HFL) and Portuguese company Eurofrutas have seen over the past decade for high-value items like avocados, mangoes and kiwifruit.
It will begin construction in 2025 and aims to complete the project by 2029.
During the first year, an initial outlay of €3.5mn plus VAT will enable it to buy a plot of land extending to 31,800m2.
After that, it will invest further in various facilities covering approximately 22,000m2 – storage, packaging, processing, and order preparation areas – and use these for a number of different product categories, it said.
Ultimately, the project is driven by a need for more space to handle and pack fruit, since HFL’s current warehouse is now used at 100 per cent capacity.
But the expansion plan is also understood to offer better access to the port of Algeciras, a hub used to import fresh produce from the US and Africa.
“Furthermore, the new warehouse’s location in southern Spain allows for a better connection with the Canary Islands, making Seville a key supply point, and North Africa, a growing supply market for HFL,” the company stated.
In addition, geographical proximity to Portugal should allow certain operational efficiencies, it added, with Dos Hermanas expected to offer support to Eurofrutas for supply and value-add services like coldstorage, packaging, and transportation.
