Chileans must unite to promote food and drink

Chile’s food and drink industry should promote itself as a single entity, according to an influential fresh produce leader.

Luis Schmidt, president of fresh produce growers’ federation Fedefruta and also president of Chile’s National Society of Agriculture, told the Journal that the industry should focus on the Flavours of Chile message it has piloted across Europe and Asia in the last three years and move away from the practise of pushing separate messages for separate food and drink categories.

He said: “We need to create a common position for all Chilean food. There simply are not enough funds for us to effectively promote each industry separately on a global basis.”

Schmidt said smaller and larger producers and exporters will benefit equally from a single channel approach, through government export promotion body ProChile. “This will not be easy to implement, because different sectors, such as fruit, will want to retain their independence. We need to maintain the position of Chile as a major provider of fruit to the European market, but to have the maximum effect for our industry, we have to establish the reputation of Chilean food and drink as being better than our competitors. I believe this could happen within the next 3-4 years,” he said.