A month-long campaign to promote bananas from the Canary Islands in the Spanish market has been heralded a success by its organisers the Association of Canary Islands Banana Producers (Asprocan) and the region’s autonomous government.
The campaign, which ran from late June until the end of July, promoted the Canary Islands brand at over 7,000 retail stores in the Iberian peninsula and is reported to have helped boost its market share to more than 75 per cent during that time, reaching an estimated 96 per cent of consumers.
This year, Canarian banana exporters and marketers were able to resist competition from more traditional summertime treats like stonefruit and ice-cream to collectively sell a total of 31,000 tonnes – much higher than the 25,000-tonne average volume for the previous three years.
Asprocan president Henry Sicilia described the collaboration between exporters and regional officials as a “successful” one which might well be repeated in future.
According to Asprocan, more than 16m households in Spain typically consume the bananas from the Canary Islands.
“The high volume of Canary Islands bananas distributed and their strong connection with quality represented a great opportunity to promote across the country the islands’ image as a tourist destination,” commented Mariate Lorenzo, Canarian Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport.
Key to the campaign and indeed the future success of the Plátano de Canarias brand in Spain will be its recent sponsorship of two leading Spanish sports stars.
Signed up earlier this month, the brand ambassadors are: Mireia Belmonte, a leading Spanish swimmer who currently holds five world records in short-course events; and Carolina Marín, Spain’s world champion badminton player who is currently ranked number one in the world for women’s singles.
