Exporters say new protocol has significantly improved the quality of table grape shipments to the US, Brazil and Mexico
Chile has exported 648,538 cartons of table grapes to the US, Mexico and Brazil under a Systems Approach so far this season, according to official figures.
Together with the increase in shipments of new varieties, the protocol has raised Chile’s competitiveness by improving the quality of its export offer, according to Frutas de Chile general manager Miguel Canala-Echeverría.
At the beginning of the 2024/25 season, the Chilean Table Grape Committee estimated that 56,461 tonnes (6.9mn 8.2 kg cartons) of table grapes would be shipped under a Systems Approach, equivalent to 35 per cent of the total volume exported from the regions of Atacama, Coquimbo and Valparaíso.
The first inspection for shipments of table grapes under Systems Approach was carried out at the Phytosanitary Inspection Site in Copiapó on 22 November last year.
Nicolás Damm, commercial manager of Río Blanco, is sending grapes under this protocol to the US, Brazil and Mexico. “The importance of this Systems Approach is tremendous. It allows us to increase the number of varieties that we can offer to this market, since the old fumigation protocol greatly limited the varieties and volume of grapes that we could offer to the Mexican market,” he said.
Alejandra Narváez, manager of the Association of Agricultural Producers and Exporters of the Copiapó Valley (Apeco), said the introduction of the Systems Approach protocol was the most important development for Chile’s table grape sector in 2024.
