The container with Italian apples shipped on 5 March will arrive in the Asian country in just over a month
A historic milestone for the Italian apple market. On Thursday 5 March VOG, the South Tyrolean Consortium with almost 5,000 member producers in the region, farming an area of 10,900 hectares, shipped a container of apples to Vietnam for the very first time. In an unprecedented move, the 8 tonnes of apples, will be distributed through the Asian country’s biggest retail circuits.
Negotiations with Vietnam began at the end of 2015 and the process has inevitably been lengthy, due to the need to agree phytosanitary conditions and pass a large number of preliminary inspections. “For our Consortium, and for the Italian market in general,” Walter Pardatscher, CEO of VOG, explained, “5 March 2020 is a date which will go down in history. Not a single load of Italian apples had ever been shipped to Vietnam before. We would like to take the opportunity,” Mr Pardatscher concluded, “to thank Assomela for their active assistance in this operation, which we hope to consolidate and continue over time.”
“As well as VOG itself,” Alessandro Dalpiaz, General Director of Assomela, adds, “the successful opening of this new sales channel is also thanks to our colleagues in the Ferrara CSO and all the Institutions, from the provincial authorities to the Ministry of Agriculture, the Italian Trade Agency and the Italian Embassy in Hanoi, whose constant support to Assomela in these difficult negotiations enabled us to achieve our goal. At what is definitely a difficult time for international trade, the importance of this result reaches beyond the apple industry alone, to restore faith in the markets and the potential for business between even very distant countries. Overall, it was a success based on teamwork, which will soon also be extended to include Taiwan and Thailand.”
“We view the Vietnamese market with great interest,” VOG Sales Manager Klaus Hölzl explained. “It has very high potential and we are committed to working hard to build the trust and partnerships necessary to win over consumers, and also to overcome some remaining criticalities in the protocol.”
In the meantime, the first container of VOG Consortium apples has already left, and will reach its destination in just over a month, enabling local consumers to enjoy Italian apples and savour “bites” of South Tyrol – Südtirol of the very highest quality.
