SHAFFE-The Southern Hemisphere Association of Fresh Fruit Exporter, has held its Annual General Meeting at the 4th of February 2021 online that has served as a starting point for the annual agenda setting of the organisation. The assembly has elected Mr. Charif Christian Carvajal M. (PhD) from the Chilean Fruit Exporters Association (ASOEX) as new president for the term 2021-23.
The presidency of Chile takes over from the presidency of South Africa, that was held by Mr. Anton Kruger (CEO, Fresh Produce Exporter Forum – FPEF). The vice-presidency will be taken over by Ms. Marta Betancur, Upefruy representative in Uruguay.
Mr. Charif Christian Carvajal M. is the Director of Marketing for Europe, Asia and Middle East of the Chilean Fruit Exporters Association (ASOEX), a non-profit entity whose members represent 90% of the total volume of fresh fruit exported from Chile. Mr. Carvajal has more than 20 years of experience in international export promotion in Europe and Asia, sectorial branding and O2O retail channel advertising. Chile, represented through ASOEX held the vice-presidency throughout the term 2019-2021, and as part of ASOEX, Mr. Carvajal has contributed to shaping the priorities in the association and played an essential role in setting up the upcoming “Southern Hemipshere Fresh Fruit Trade Congress 2021”.
He underlines, that: “SHAFFE is unique organisation, providing a platform of all relevant Southern Hemisphere fruit trade players, to understand current global trade dynamics and to learn from each other. Together we have a significant knowledge and market experience – that needs to be seen and shared more!”.
Amongst his priorities will be, to position the organisation as turnstile for dialogue and mutual learning between SHAFFE members and Northern Hemisphere traders.
Together with the new presidency team, SHAFFE will now continue, to work with high speed towards the finalisation of the program for the “Southern Hemisphere Fresh Fruit Trade Congress”, which will take place online at the 25th of March 2021. With the defining theme “Keeping the world supplied”, this first edition will be dedicated to give exclusive insights and market intelligence on the current production & trading situation for key temperate fruit crop under pandemic conditions with contributions from all eight Southern Hemisphere suppliers: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Uruguay and South Africa. Southern Hemisphere exporters contribute with 11 million T of exported temperate fruit with a market value of $ 14 billion USD to nearly ¼ of global fruit supply and play a significant role to the availability of healthy food choices.
According to SHAFFE Secretary General Nelli Hajdu. “The number of registrations since the launch of the congress show to us, that there is need for market intelligence and information from key suppliers of the Southern Hemisphere – and we will do our best, to deliver.”
The members and the secretariat of SHAFFE thank the South African presidency and Mr. Anton Kruger from the Fresh Produce Exporter Forum, South Africa for his dedicated work throughout the last years. South Africa has been showing strong leadership during the acute crisis management when increasing barriers to production and trade appeared through the Covid-19 pandemic and have next to the attention to sustainability matters, also shaped the organisations internal transition.
More information on the Southern Hemisphere Fresh Fruit Trade Congress is available here.