The blueberry success career continues worldwide. Year after year, new consumers are added and consumption increases.

This success is thanks to the fact that this fruit has all the qualities the current consumer seeks: it’s healthy, practical, and tasty. Argentina stands out in this point thanks to the favorable agro ecological conditions and the excellent quality of the soils and water.

Being a source of vitamin C and minerals, the blueberry is considered a “super fruit”. It is the berry with the greatest anti-oxidant feature, has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial powers, among other benefits.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (organ for the control of food and drugs) summarizes the blueberries’ properties like this: this fruit is fat free, sodium and cholesterol free, and it is rich in fibers, refreshing, tonic, astringent, diuretic, has vitamin C and hippuric acid (which hinders bacteria from affixing on the bladder wall).

Anthocyanin, the pigment that gives the blue color to the fruit, participates in the human cell metabolism reducing the action of free radicals associated to ageing, cancer, heart failure and Alzheimer’s disease.

Argentinean blues: a synonym of quality and flavor

The Argentine blueberry stands out in the global market thanks to its excellent quality, and particularly, its outstanding flavor. This is mainly due to the weather we have and the varieties we plant, since a varietal replacement close to 85% of the total planted hectares was made. This added to the fact that 95% of the exports are by air allowing the fruit to reach the country of destination immediately thus extending the fruit’s shelf life.

At the beginning, Argentina worked with the Oneal and Misty varieties, but these have been almost fully replaced. Currently, most of the surface is planted with varieties that adapt better to the geographical and weather conditions of the productive regions of Argentina, such as Emerald, Snowchaser and Star.

The new varieties planted in Argentina have had an excellent performance, contributing to position our country as a leader in this window; the early one in the Southern Hemisphere (between August and October).

This reality finally came as a consequence of the vision, trust and commitment of the producers who, aware of the technological advances of nursery operators and plant breeders, invested in varietal replacement. Back in the year 2008, Argentine producers asked themselves what could be done to differentiate their offer from the great “blue tide” coming from competing countries.

The differentiation strategy would take some time, but we knew it was the road to follow.

It is also worth mentioning the producers who have made incursions in organic farming and production. They have taken advantage of the rise of organic production at national level, and added blueberries to the large list of organic products Argentina offers to the world.

Today, we are happy with the joint work we have made and we believe we are on the right path: oriented to quality and flavor, permanent innovation and reliability of the markets.