Belgian King Witnesses Agreement Signing between Dole and BFV

On 25th June, Dole Food Company and BFV (Belgische Fruitveiling) entered into a cooperation agreement to jointly develop cold-storage warehouse facilities in China for Belgian pears. The signing ceremony took place at the Hyatt on the Bund Hotel in Shanghai. Chan Winghong, General Manager of Dole China, and Erik Champagne, Chairman of BFV, represented the two sides. King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium appeared as guests of honor and added further significance to the event.

BFV is the largest fruit growers’ organization in Belgium, garnering 50% share of market. Founded in 1990, it now represents more than 1600 growers. BFV is famous for its Truval pears. Truval means “True Value”. Only less than 25% of the best Belgian pears can be branded Truval.

As the exclusive agent of BFV in China for Truval pear, Dole China began distributing the fruit four years ago. Starting from zero, Truval pears are now available in every first-tier city in China.

According to Dole China, in the interest of providing Chinese consumers with a top-quality Belgian pear, both BFV and Dole China are engaging themselves in this agreement to jointly coordinate their efforts in providing Chinese consumers with a product that maintains it freshness from trees in Belgium to the end consumer anywhere in China.

For this reason Dole and BFV will hereby jointly commit and invest in building cool storage cells specifically adapted to the ideal storage conditions of Conference [Conference is the name of a variety of pears, while Truval is a brand of BFV] Pears, which take into account all temperature, humidity and ventilation requirements of this particular pear variety.

The first phase of this joint project will be to build and maintain a first storage cell in the Dole China facilities in Beijing, with a target completion date of June 2016, at which time an estimated annual volume of two million kilograms for the Northern China region, would be kept in short-term storage in this new facility.

This will ensure the pears are maintained in their optimal conditions throughout the whole logistics chain. In later phases, further expansions of this partnership are planned for Chengdu, Xi’an and Shenzhen.

Dole China’s spokesman remarked to Produce Report, during the stay of King Philippe and Queen Mathilde in China, Dole and BFV became the unique fruit supplier for every dinner and conference. The soft, juicy and tasty pears are most appealing to VIP guests.