Korea not satisfied with Indian mango quality/packaging: APEDA

Korea, which opened its market for Indian mangoes this year, has not given a positive feedback on their quality, packaging and other issues, agri- export promotion body APEDA said today.

Indian traders need to focus on logistics and other issues in their business plans which are relevant to global markets, APEDA Chairman D K Singh said.

In the ongoing mango season, the fruit is being exported to various countries like the US and Europe. More new markets are also being explored. South Korea opened its market for Indian markets early this month.

Speaking at an Assocham event on cold chain development, Singh highlighted that "feedback received from Korea on export of mangoes was not good, in terms of quality, packaging and other related issues".

He further said that "when we think of a business plan in logistics development, we must also think those aspects which are relevant in a particular market".

Singh said much of the focus is on backward integration in the system but not on the co-relation and forward linkages up to the country where it is reaching.

He said cold chain logistics for import items is better than for the export items as those products have to be brought and quickly distributed to the consumers.

That segment is well off and the industry is ready for a distribution network but not for exports and industry is not ready to work with farmers, he added.

The APEDA chief further said that merely creating few cold storage for potato, apple, grapes would not be sufficient in order to increase farmers income.

A proper system need to be put in place to collect the farmers produce at the farm, sort it, grade it in next 5-6 hours and then transport to a place having pre-cooling facility, he said.

From there, it goes to the pack house for higher level of packaging and processing and then from that point it is taken to the port for export, he added.

"So the entire chain has to be addressed and preferably by a chain of operators who have interest in the entire value chain, Singh said.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)