During the first two months of 2022, Peru’s passion fruit exports totaled $6.18 million in January and February of this year, 10 percent above the total for the same period last year, but still short of peaks seen in 2016.

According to a statement published by the Peruvian exporters association ADEX, exports of the tropical fruit in the period have grown each year since 2021, after a choppy performance between 2017 and 2020.

Susana Yturry, manager of the association, said that the association has been working with the government’s national ag-innovation institute INIA to strengthen the technical capacities of the industry’s workforce.

The two institutions have been focusing mainly on improving results at the field level, but the effort also includes promotional activities to “motivate growers to keep planting passion fruit”, the statement said.

The fruit is sold via a number of formats, led by juice (55 percent), pulp (20 percent), concentrate (18 percent), with fresh fruit sales the fourth category.

The top receiver is the Netherlands, with products destined for the E.U. market, followed by the United States.