The giant Citrosuco lands in Spain through ‘Zumosol’

Citrosuco, one of the world’s leading orange juice producers, has landed in Spain through an agreement with Cordoba-based Zumos Palma, a subsidiary of Turkish group Toksöz.

The Brazilian company, which bills around 1,200 M $ annually, has rented the factory in Palma del Río, with an option to purchase, which allows it to increase the production capacity of freshly squeezed juices.

These technologically advanced facilities with a capacity of 140,000 t (although currently being produced at around 55,000 t annually) belonged to the Pascual Group, which sold them in 2013 to Toksöz.

According to ABC, (daily newspaper published in Madrid) the agreement with Citrosuco includes the use of the fruit treatment plant and juice processing during the next three years, but not bottling lines. The Brazilian company, controlled by the Fischer and Votorantim groups, has the capacity to produce more than 600,000 t of juice each year, although mostly juice from orange concentrate, while the Zumos Palma plant specializes in 100 % expressed, the category that is growing the most within the sector, and which also implies a qualitative leap that would generate added value to Citrosuco.

This Brazilian group has four factories, 29 farms and five maritime terminals, as well as five ships and 45 own trucks for the distribution of its products. One of them is in the port of Ghent, from which it manages its logistics for Europe. It has commercial offices in Brazil, USA, Japan, China, Austria and Australia.

Four years of take-off
As for Zumos Palma, in the last four years, the brand ‘Zumosol’ has experienced a ‘renaissance’ , to be among the top ten national manufacturers of juices and nectars, according to the Alimarket Report 2017 on the sector. In 2016, Zumos Palma commercialized 65 Ml of juice (50 % with its own brand), compared to 25 Ml it sold in 2014, around 12 % to markets such as China, South Korea, USA, Turkey and Italy. In addition to ambient and refrigerated juices, it has sold since the year 2016 vegetable juices (‘Zumosol Veggies’ and ‘Jux’); and in 2017 expanded its catalog with lemonade (‘Limonísima’) ; and fruit juices 100 % squeezed in children’s format.

Zumos Palma closed the 2016-2017 campaign with a production volume of 55 M kg, compared to the forecast of 100 M, due to the campaign of reduced fruit and high prices of it.