“In Mexico we will provide our workers and their families – 400 people – with their daily meal needs,” says César Ortiz, CEO of Agrofesa, based in the North-West of Mexico. With a reasonable table grape season behind their backs, Agrofesa are now focusing on organic and conventional fruit and vegetable production and exports to mainly the US and European markets.
“For the upcoming season we will offer a wide variety of organic and conventional fruits and vegetables. This includes zucchini, yellow and grey squash, eggplant, slicer cucumbers, green bell peppers, regular and mini watermelons. In addition we will have green beans available for Thanksgiving in the US,” says Ortiz.
He expects strong market demand in the US while in Europe the many shortages caused by the destructive heatwave are causing tight supplies. “Our products are marketed domestically, in the US, Canada and different Asian countries. We are expecting a strong fall season. Many weather related events happening domestically and abroad which are keeping some commodities supplies tight. Additionally industry wise we are hearing and seeing acreage reduction mainly due to increasing growing costs and labour shortages.”
The new canteen facilities
While growing over 800 hectares of fresh produce, with 220 hectares of table grapes and the assortment of other fruit and vegetables to feed consumers in the US, Europe and increasingly in Asia, Agrofesa first take care of their own people. They have just completed a purpose built cafeteria to not only feed workers who toil on the farms daily. With this new facility Agrofesa will also provide daily meals to the families of workers – that is 400 people in total, with spare capacity to also feed the surrounding communities.
“We are very excited to announce that a few days ago we opened a brand new cafeteria equipped with state of the art facilities to provide our co-workers and their families with their meal needs. This brand new dining room will be operated by our recently launched Fundación Agrofesa which aims to improve our collaborators and their family’s welfare and support their continuous development. This dining facility is additionally equipped with a bakery, water purifier and a convenience store. Our company philosophy is to put our collaborators in first place. We currently offer an on-site medical clinic, child nursery, elementary school, sport courts and many recreational activities,” states Ortiz proudly.
Inside the kitchen of the new canteen facilities
“The new facility cost is a six digit investment, which is well worth it to satisfy all of our organization collaborators food needs. Our Company Philosophy is to take care of our people first, in order to be able to satisfy our customers we must satisfy our collaborators first which enhances their abilities to deliver the highest and freshest quality in our products. Providing the proper infrastructure, tools, training and guidance our organization is able to achieve a socially responsible community which keeps the team and all of our co-workers highly motivated and loyal to provide our customers with the best produce,” Ortiz proudly states.
“Between our pecans, tables grapes and protected agriculture vegetable program we normally produce 32 weeks of the year distributed across 800 hectares. All of our fields and facilities are certified by Primus GFS, Primus Harvest Crews, Fair Trade, and Sedex. Our organic program is certified by CCOF,” states Ortiz.
For more information:
César Ortiz
Agrofesa
Tel: +52 (662) 2-62-05-60/64
Email: [email protected]
www.agrofesa.com