A Colombian company with three decades' experience of mango production is this year dipping its toes into the waters of international markets, but says industry development is still needed to make the country major player.

A representative of La Hondura told www.freshfruitportal.com at the recent Macfrut event held in Italy that mango growers had generally focused on the domestic market due to high levels of demand. 

This year, however, the company is experimenting with sending some containers to Europe.

"This is our first year in exports. We have forecast production of around 3,600 metric tons (MT) of mangoes this year, and we hope to send 400MT of that to international markets," general manager Juan David Correa said.

"Colombia is not a country that has much of a tradition or good knowledge of mango exports - we're just starting.

"We have to improve many of our post harvest processes, but the results that we have seen in terms of the exported fruit's quality and condition have been good."

La Hondura has 50,000 trees across 400 hectares of land. Only 70% of the trees are currently bearing fruit, with the Keitt and Tommy Atkins making up the majority of volumes.

The season typically kicks off around week 25 and runs through week 46. While the export focus so far has been on the British and German markets, La Hondura will also conduct some trial shipments to Italy and the Netherlands over the remaining weeks of the campaign.

"We are hoping that the rains will pass in order for us to begin these shipments - with El Niño and La Niña we have experienced some delays to the harvests," he said.

Correa added that rains were particularly problematic when dealing with export mangoes, as higher humidity levels can encourage the development of diseases during transit.

"We don't have much experience in post harvest, and we are therefore fine-tuning all of our processes, from the transportation to packing, to ensure a production of excellent quality arrives in the destination market," he said.

"We are new to this and our new clients are aware of that. Thanks to our efforts we have so far been able to see good results, but there is still much more to do."

Correa estimates that in the future a quarter of total production could be exported, but said it would all depend on how strong the domestic market remains.

"The mango sector is very different from the avocado sector. In Colombia there isn't much of a culture of eating avocados, and therefore there was a great opportunity to export that fruit, but with mangoes it's not the same. Here mango is eaten every day and demand is strong," he said.

He added that the Colombian avocado industry was far more advanced in terms of post harvest and packing practices, and in terms of GlobalG.A.P certifications.

But Correa hopes his company can be a leader in the Colombian mango industry's development, and believes the 1,000 hectares of plantations in the country could one day quadruple.

"The idea is toistrengthen the sector and help it to develop. For example, Colombia doesn't have any mango packhouses, everything is done in avocado packhouses because the current levels of export aren't high enough to justify that kind of investment," he said.

"We believe that in the future the domestic market will not be quite as strong and we have to be prepared for exports."

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