The agri-food industry faces significant challenges: climate change, competition from nearby producing countries, the need to diversify markets, and thus improve logistics to reach new, more distant destinations. These challenges were addressed on the opening day of ENEXPRO FOOD 2023, an international meeting organized by ProChile, the promotion agency for products and services of the Latin American country.
The Director of ProChile, Ignacio Fernandez, stated, “It is very important for us to support such a powerful sector as the agri-food industry. If we look at last year’s non-copper exports, the agri-food sector represented 44% of Chilean exports, which are impressive figures that we want to continue increasing. In fact, one goal is to reach USD 30 billion in agri-food exports by 2025.”
“What ProChile does is bring together national supply with international demand. Today, we will have more than 500 business meetings that we hope will be very fruitful and help us close deals that we all want to see expand,” he added.
The Chilean agri-food sector exports to 170 countries, with over 800 products. “It is very dynamic and has high added value. People think it’s easy to send cherries to China or salmon to Brazil, but the truth is that we are very far away, and it is challenging to deliver fresh fruit, quality wines, meats, and different products to the world efficiently. There is a powerful added value in that. Around 80% of what it means to put a product abroad is related to services associated with these shipments, and there is a lot of added value there,” explained Fernandez.
Ignacia Fernández, Chile’s Undersecretary of Agriculture, also addressed the sector’s challenges and mentioned that in recent years, “we have had to face complicated challenges: a pandemic, extreme weather events, wars, changing conditions in international markets. Therefore, supporting initiatives like this is an important commitment as a ministry.”
Later, a panel discussion was held on “Challenges and future trends for food,” where Claudio Cilveti, President of the Exporters’ Council of Food; Marcela Zuñiga, Commercial Director of ProChile India; Gonzalo Salinas, Senior Analyst at Rabobank; Pablo Zamora, Executive President of Fundación Chile, and Foodtech Entrepreneur, shared their experiences and insights. The attendees agreed that the challenges presented must be addressed through public-private collaboration to continue strengthening the sector.
Finally, importers and exporters moved to the hall where business meetings are taking place today and tomorrow.
Origin, Food Safety, and Sustainability: Pillars of Enexpro Food
Enexpro Food, an iconic event organized by ProChile, returned to an in-person format after three years of sanitary restrictions. This time, the focus was on three essential pillars of our exports: origin, highlighting the unique qualities of our territory and its people; food safety, emphasizing trust, excellence, and quality in our goods and services; and sustainability, a key element that the institution seeks to promote at all stages of the export process.
Among the prioritized sectors were fresh fruit, nuts and dried fruits, wines, and agribusiness. These offerings were linked to invited importers from Costa Rica, Peru, Guatemala, Colombia, India, the United States, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, and Brazil. Commercial Directors from ProChile’s offices in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Hamburg, Germany; New York, United States; New Delhi, India; and Guatemala City, Guatemala, also participated in the event.
More information about ENEXPRO FOOD at ProChile. Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores
