Sustainable products from Latin America in Berlin

Coffee, exotic dried fruits and fish are just some of the products exported by the KfW-supported companies from Latin America. The eco.business Fund supports companies in the field of sustainable agriculture. Three of these eco-companies are exhibiting at the KfW booth at the International Green Week in Berlin, in order to present their products and expand their customer base.

Dried Peruvian ground cherries and juices and powders from these golden yellow fruits are the export hit for Terrafertil from Ecuador. The company from Ecuador which was founded in 2015 by two brothers and their friends is now exporting worldwide. The sustainable production has been awarded the Fairtrade seal. 900 small-scale producers in Ecuador and Colombia supply Terrafertil not only with Peruvian ground cherries, but also with bananas, mangoes, pineapples and nuts. As the fruits are marketed in dried form, samples with slight visual flaws are also processed – a niche market. Terrafertil has now opened a second plant in the neighbouring country, Colombia. The funding from the eco.business Fund is opening up the possibility of further expansion for the company.

The eco.business Fund was set up by KfW – together with the fund manager Finance-in-Motion and the non-governmental organisation Conservation International – on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in December 2014. It allows companies and cooperatives in Latin America to fund investments which make a contribution to the preservation of bio-diversity or to the sustainable use of natural resources. In autumn 2016, KfW approved a participation in the Fund from its own funds in the converted amount of over EUR 22.2 million, in order to live up to the growing demand. Together with the fund manager, KfW was able to gain further investors such as the Dutch FMO, the European Union and the GLS Bank.

At Tejemet, a coffee producer from El Salvador, the money from the Fund is flowing into the planting of new coffee trees. The company intends to plant 250,000 saplings every year, part of them in environmentally friendly agroforestry programmes. The Pacas Lopez family, which is managing the company in the fifth generation, is relying on durable local species which can better resist the unpredictable weather fluctuations due to climate change. The family runs eight of its own plantations and a mill, and also purchases over 20,000 tonnes of coffee beans that also comply with high sustainability standards. This means that numerous local coffee producers have a buyer. The latest business idea at Tejemet is the "Viva Espresso" café chain, which is now due to expand internationally as well.

Alimentos Prosalud from Costa Rica is also presenting itself at the International Green Week, on the invitation of the eco.business Fund. The company, which started out as a processor of sardines and tuna, is now one of the world's most significant fish suppliers. Prosalud employs a workforce of 1,300 people and complies with all the standards of the most important certifiers for seafood, for instance with regard to dolphin-friendly tuna fishing. The company has also succeeded in avoiding all types of fish waste. Anything that cannot be sold as fillets is processed into fish meal or fish oil. Prosalud also provides both its employees and the local communities with further education on topics such as recycling, the economical handling of resources, the preservation of beaches and keeping water pure.

Both on land and on the sea, the eco.business Fund supports sustainable companies in Latin America and helps them to tap into new sales markets in Europe.