Italian company Battaglio, which specialises in importing and distributing exotic and counter-seasonal fruit, is expanding an already fruitful partnership with leading Colombian banana producer-exporter CI Tropical by investing in a new project to develop avocado supply in the South American country.

Work on the venture, known as Agricola Persea, has already started. By 2020 the partners expect to establish around 1,000ha of Hass avocado production in the mountains of Colombia’s Valle del Cauca.

While Tropical group’s interest in the project is driven by the opportunity to diversify into an item of fresh produce that is achieving excellent levels of quality in Colombia, for Battaglio the new investment offers a chance for vertical integration in its tropical product supply, for which it is becoming a distributor of choice in the Italian market.

The new strategic partnership, which benefit from Tropical’s production experience and Battaglio’s distribution strength, will certainly guarantee, for the upcoming years, very high quality of avocados and bananas.