Spreafico expands kiwifruit operations into Greece

Italy’s Spreafico has launched a new venture in Greece, Spreafico Hellas, to boost its supply of kiwifruit and other Mediterranean produce for the European market. The move is designed to strengthen the company’s position and competitiveness in the global kiwifruit market, as Italian fruit growers are increasingly oriented to plant yellow varieties.

“Furthermore, the changed climatic conditions of recent years and the emergence of new diseases make the production of green kiwifruit more uncertain in different areas of Italy. Differentiating the origin means mitigating the supply risk,” the company said.

As reported back in September, a recent decline in Italy’s production due to a disease called moria, frosts and fewer plantings, means the country has produced the same volume of kiwifruit as Greece for the first time this season.

Besides kiwifruit, Spreafico plans to source several other products from Greece, including stonefruit and citrus.

Project coordinator Alberto Garbuglia said the new venture will focus on the central-eastern area of the Hellenic peninsula, around the fertile river plains at the foot of Mount Olympus.

“Our supply network expands throughout the plain west of Thessaloniki (Veria, Skydra, Naussa) and along the coastal plains of Arta and Agrinio,” he explained.

“Greece is an interesting production area for us because of its favourable climatic and social and economic conditions. Farming in Greece is undergoing to an interesting shift from extensive crops to fruit production and this is made possible because of the availability of suitable land and irrigation water, and the country’s proactive entrepreneurial environment.”