Apo Conerpo saves the 2023 budget. But it is an all-time low for fruit and vegetables delivered

The year 2023 will go down in the annals of Apo Conerpo, Europe's largest organisation of fruit and vegetable producers, which closed its last balance sheet at the lowest point in terms of product conferred by its 50 member cooperatives - 732,000 tonnes, -27% compared to the average of the last ten years and the lowest record reached in almost 60 years of activity - while saving the accounts in terms of value.

The agricultural cooperative structure founded in 1967 in Emilia-Romagna, which today represents all the Italian regions most dedicated to fruit and vegetable growing - 33 thousand hectares of cultivated land, 91 processing and storage plants, 6 thousand workers and five commercial companies, Alegra, Brio, Opera, Naturitalia and Valfrutta Fresco - closed its 2023 financial statements with approximately 434 million euros of marketed product (+1.8% on 2023) and a turnover of 787 million (-2.7% on 2022, which had marked the group's best result in the last decade). "From the spring frost to the May floods, from the summer drought to hailstorms, to the resurgence of serious climate-related plant diseases such as spotted blight and bacterial blight, no production was spared in 2023, with particularly heavy effects on several crops, especially in Emilia-Romagna such as pears peaches and nectarines, cherries, processing tomatoes and onions," commented the president of Apo Conerpo, Davide Vernocchi, who was confirmed yesterday at the helm of the organisation by the assembly of members gathered in the Bologna headquarters for the approval of the 2023 final balance. Also complicating the scenario were the increases in the prices of energy and raw materials, the explosion of inflation, the drop in purchasing power, and the increasing difficulty in finding labour.

Three factors have mitigated the negative effects on the Op, explains the president: "The progressive enlargement of the social base that has guaranteed product availability even in the most critical phases, the excellent economic performance of the processing tomatoes despite the flood damage, and the commendable work carried out by our sales companies to maximise the value of the available product, particularly in the Italian large-scale retail trade, where we have even recorded an increase in value of 13.9%. The challenge that Apo Conerpo now faces is to ensure sustainability along the entire fruit and vegetable chain, starting from the fields, in an increasingly complex climatic and economic context. "If we compare the current results with those of 2018, the last year in which our members recorded harvests and deliveries in line with production potential," Vernocchi concludes, "we can see that the group's 2023 turnover grew by 8%, a figure that is undoubtedly positive but which barely covers one third of the effects of inflation and cost increases that fell on producers. There is still a lot to be done because if profitability fails, farms close. This is why we are investing significant resources in scientific research and why we have decided to involve new forces in the governance that, due to their experience and competence, will help us face the critical issues of our supply chains'.

Yesterday at the Castenaso meeting, four new vice-presidents were appointed, expressing the main production areas of the member cooperatives and the sectors at the centre of Apo Conerpo's activities: Adriano Aldrovandi (president FruitModena Group), Alberto Guerra (vice-president Agrintesa), Massimo Passanti (president Propar) and Aldo Rizzoglio (president Patfrut) and a new general manager was appointed, Daniele Maria Ghezzi, a university lecturer and former director of the "Piacenza Alimentare" internationalisation consortium, who takes the baton from Gabriele Chiesa at the helm of Apo Conerpo for the last 21 years.