SHAFFE, The Southern Hemisphere Association of Fresh Fruit Exporter, has elected Chile’s Charif Christian Carvajal as its new president for 2021-23 at its AGM.
Chile takes over from South Africa, who held the presidency under the helm of Anton Kruger, CEO of the Fresh Produce Exporter Forum. The vice-presidency will be taken over by Marta Betancur, Upefruy representative in Uruguay.
Carvajal is the marketing director for Europe, Asia and Middle East of Chilean fruit exporters association Asoex. He has more than 20 years of experience in international export promotion in Europe and Asia, sectorial branding and O2O retail channel advertising.
Chile, represented through Asoex, held the vice-presidency throughout the term 2019- 2021, and as part of Asoex Carvajal has contributed to shaping the priorities in the association and played an essential role in setting up the upcoming “Southern Hemipshere Fresh Fruit Trade Congress 2021”.
“SHAFFE is a unique organisation, providing a platform of all relevant Southern Hemisphere fruit trade players to understand current global trade dynamics and to learn from each other,” Carvajal said.
“Together we have a significant knowledge and market experience – that needs to be seen and shared more.”
His priorities will include to position the organisation as turnstile for dialogue and mutual learning between SHAFFE members and Northern Hemisphere traders, and to finalise the programme for the Southern Hemisphere Fresh Fruit Trade Congress, which takes place online on 25 March 2021.
With the defining theme “Keeping the world supplied”, the inaugural edition will cover the current production and trading situation for key temperate fruit crop under pandemic conditions, with contributions from all eight Southern Hemisphere suppliers: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Uruguay and South Africa.
Southern Hemisphere suppliers exported 11m tonnes of temperate fruit with a market value of US$14bn last year, making up almost a quarter of global fruit supply.
SHAFFE secretary general Nelli Hajdu said: “The number of registrations since the launch of the congress show to us, that there is need for market intelligence and information from key suppliers of the Southern Hemisphere – and we will do our best, to deliver.”
The members and the secretariat of SHAFFE thanked the South African presidency for their dedicated work throughout the last years, noting that the country had shown strong leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic.
