Founded in 2006 by the German national and CEO Reinhard Schedlbauer, AgroAndino currently leads organic Cape gooseberry production in the country. Schedlbauer told FreshFruitPortal.com that the company then began working on getting the organic certification for its first 800-plant trial.

Peru’s very own, sweeter Cape gooseberry has allowed the firm to stand out among competitors, the executive said. 

As of May 2023, the company has changed its business model to export premium quality fresh organic Cape gooseberries, while also maintaining a dehydrated line, using lesser quality fruit.

Schedlbauer commented that they are located in the Cajamarca region, in the northern Peruvian Andes, where they currently have 138 acres planted with Cape gooseberry plants and, by October of this year, they expect to reach 230 acres. Harvests will be carried out from now on, throughout the year.

He explained that it took two years to achieve organic certification for the first time. Presently, the company has also dabbled in blueberry cultivation. 

“We have our field with organic certification and in October we expect to have Global GAP certification on blueberries,” he said.

AgroAndino has Global GAP certification for 130 producers.

He added that supermarkets in Germany always have organic fresh vegetables and fruit, “so it is a good argument in front of customers or consumers, that as a company we do not exploit areas, but protect them through the application of regenerative agriculture”.

Reinhard Schedlbauer, founder of AgroAndino.

Markets

AgroAndino’s main destination market is Germany, where they ship around 1,200 tons of Cape gooseberries.

Schedlbauer added that they hope to gain access to the U.S. market soon, and that “Senasa and APHIS are working to achieve the opening”.

“The sanitary protocol standard has already been issued and the 60-day publication is still pending and if there are no objections, in September we would have the approval for fresh organic Peruvian cape Cape gooseberry,” he noted.

Having obtained the approval and the decree, Schedlbauer thinks that, by the end of the year, they should start exporting to the United States.

“Our idea is to be able to export 50% to Germany and 50% to the United States, since in terms of maritime transit is less time, 10 days maximum, so it would facilitate logistics,” he added.

Regarding the Asian market, he was clear in saying that “it is very far away, the fruit has a shelf life of five weeks from harvest to sale, so it is not advisable”.

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