Growing organic bananas in Latin America
The DEROSE plantation is in Ecuador’s Santa Elena province. It is a plantation of over 1,000 hectares with 385 hectares currently in production. Today, DEROSE is producing 17,000 tons of organic bananas per year and employs 300 people. The company has international certifications, such as Organic NOP/CE, Global Gap, and Fairtrade.
Compagnie Fruitière is the largest producer in the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific region. It produces, transports, ripens, and markets more than 900,000 tons of fruit and vegetables, including 750,000 tons of bananas, primarily to the European markets.
Organic bananas are one of the fastest-growing fresh produce categories. Today’s organic bananas represent over 10% of all the bananas consumed in the European and North American markets. In 2017, Compagnie Fruitière decided to increase its organic banana farming operations and expanded to Latin America to meet the growing demand in Europe and North America markets.
The Group acquired over 1,000 hectares in a semiarid, traditionally non-banana region of Ecuador, and established DEROSE as its catalyst to increase its organic banana production.
