The blueberry campaign in Morocco started a few weeks ago with the first fruits of Blue Manila (from Planasa) produced by the African Growers Cooperative in the Jaouda farms located in Agadir and Kénitra. The extra-precocity of Blue Manila has also been favoured by the climate of the area and by the management carried out by the technicians, starting to produce fruit of this variety in week 50.
Three years ago, the company started to grow blueberries and two seasons ago they decided to go for Planasa's variety programme. On their farms located in different areas in the north and south of Morocco, they grow three of the six varieties in the commercial catalogue: Blue Manila, Blue Madeira and Blue Malibu. In total they have about 250 hectares of this crop, that is one million plants.
Latifa Allouach, farm manager at Jaouda Agri Agadir, confirmed the great potential of Blue Manila in the region and underlined that "We are looking for varieties that achieve high yields and offer stability and good quality throughout the season and Blue Manila meets these criteria perfectly. Last season we had very good results with this variety and the fruit size was simply extraordinary, with an average of 23 mm."
Latifa Allouach, farm manager at Jaouda Agri Agadir.
Jaouda Agri activities oversee the whole process from cultivation to distribution of all its products, including packaging and marketing, all the while maintaining a firm commitment to the quality of the final product.
Commercial and development manager, Imane Rincón Sánchez, acknowledged that "The blueberry is a product that perfectly meets current trends: easy to eat and excellent for health, it meets all the requirements to accelerate sales and increase its consumption worldwide. Moreover, at Jaouda Agri, we were determined from the very beginning of our project to offer our customers a plus with blueberries with a powerful aroma and a crunchy texture, and our technical team quickly turned to Planasa's Blue Manila, Blue Madeira and Blue Malibu varieties to achieve this."
More info:
Imane Rincón-Sanchez
imane.rincon@zalaragri.ma
zalaragri.com