West-In Avo is looking to expand the total nursery capacity to propagate over 100,000 plants a year
Alk Brand, Group CEO of Westfalia Fruit, is on his maiden visit to India after the establishment of West-In Avo, a joint venture of Westfalia Fruit International with Sam Agri – India, Dvori or & Zohara Farms – Israel for an integrated avocado growing and marketing project. The visit included a review of West-In Avo’s long-term strategy for the Indian market, growth plans and commitment of Westfalia Fruit to develop the avocado industry in India.
West-In Avo is looking to expand the total nursery capacity to propagate over 100,000 plants a year and start producing clonal plants, which have better tolerance to phytophthora root rot and are ideally suited for the high rainfall tropical growing conditions in the Western Ghats region. West-In Avo is looking to work with large and small growers in this region to expand avocado growing areas from the current plantation of 120 hectares to over 1000 hectares in the next 3-4 years.
“We have had a strong start to our partnership in India, establishing ourselves as the market leader in avocados – having the largest growing footprint of avocado orchards and marketing avocado fruit in the Indian market. We see a great potential for India developing into a large market for growing Hass avocados for both domestic consumption and exports and Westfalia Fruit will take a leadership role in establishing the avocado industry in India,” mentioned Alk Brand, Group CEO of Westfalia Fruit Group.
GVK Naidu, MD of Sam Agri Group added, “Being the first integrated avocado project in India, we have built a solid relationship with our grower partners by providing the highest quality planting material, continued technical support, developing a package of practices for Indian conditions and also offer buy back of produce for marketing.”
