The COVID-19 crisis allowed Salix Fruits to validate its business model with 100% growth during 2020 and its consolidation in the global fresh fruit business

The company took advantage of its strengths and enlarged its team to continue growing. Also, it accentuated its digital profile by launching an app to improve the experience of customers and producers.

Salix Fruits, the leading company in import and export of fresh fruits, closed its 2020 balance shipping more than 40,000 pallets of fruit, which implied a 100% growth and an increase in the business of citrus fruits and apples, the main products of Salix´s supply, which together with grapes represent 80% of their business.

“Since we started with Salix, we have developed a business model based on self-management. An agile, flexible, digitized, decentralized company, focused on the standardization of processes. The pandemic allowed us to take advantage of the company's DNA and let us grow at impressive rates. Home office, virtual meetings, and technology were not a challenge for us, they already were our reality” says Juan Gonzalez Pita, Founder of Salix, a company with offices in Philadelphia, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, and Cape Town.

Despite a first half of the year crossed by the unthinkable appearance of coronavirus, which completely changed the world panorama of 2020, Salix Fruits was able to start its shipments normally in March for the Middle East, Russia, Latin America, and Canada, in April for the United States, and in early May for Europe.

“This year, in addition to the natural growth of our usual businesses (export of Argentine lemons to the USA, oranges from the Southern Hemisphere to the Middle East and apples from Washington to Latin America) we developed new businesses such as the commercialization of Mexican lemons and limes” explains Gonzalez Pita, and adds that business with Asia also had a positive impact on achieving global growth for Salix.

Besides, the company expanded its team during this year to provide an increasingly efficient service to producers and customers. For this, “we have incorporated Maximiliano Guevara as Country Manager for Chile and Fernando Moyano as Sales Manager for Europe”, says Gonzalez Pita and adds: “We also added 2 new commercials to be closer to customers in the USA and ME and Javier Orti joined us for Asia. Likewise, we expanded the base of supermarkets in the USA for the placement of fruit of all origins”. Shaun Swartz joined to manage the South African office, completing a staff of more than 20 people.

Likewise, Salix Fruits closed agreements with new producers from Peru, Egypt, and South Africa to be able to have a complete and varied offer all year round, especially in citrus and grapes.

As a milestone for the company, and a great contribution to the activity in times of mandatory isolation, Salix Fruits launched an App that customers and producers can download directly to their phones to keep track of all the offers that the company has with images of the fruits they offer, the origin, and the price, among other functionalities. At present, it works as an excellent e-commerce tool, especially to have all the documentation of the operation and to know the status of the order online, and in the future, they hope that this tool will evolve into a true marketplace where producers and customers meet without any pandemic limiting business.

“We seem to be preparing for a year as the past 2020 since the beginning of Salix. We were able to take advantage of all our strengths, reacting quickly in the face of a pandemic, which also allowed us to accelerate our growth and accentuate the technological profile of the company” concludes Gonzalez Pita.