Chilean plums and the challenge of reinventing themselves in the face of stagnant consumption

The economist and agronomist Juan Pablo Subercaseaux raises the need to create new strategies for this sector in Chile, the largest global exporter. The opening of the gigantic Indian market appears as a short-term solution. The plum industry in Chile and the world is going through a central challenge: how to increase the consumption of this expensive fruit in its fresh and dry formats, which has been stagnant in recent years. This is how Juan Pablo Subercaseaux, the economist from the Catholic University (UC) and agronomist, who has been studying the figures and trends that this industry is going through, puts it. "The per capita consumption of plums went from its peak of more than 41 grams in 2003, to 29 grams per capita in 2017. This figure has been maintained, which is worrying and which leads the industry to have to reinvent itself to that consumption increases. Therefore, new strategies must be created to boost consumption in the markets”, says Subercaseaux. In a ...