Sponsored Post – VOG Products, the South Tyrolean fruit processing company, not only processes increasing quantities of organic apples, but has also expanded its portfolio with Naturland-certified products. Of vital importance for customers is the regional origin of the raw materials that are sourced from the producer organisation’s members.

Supplies on the market for organic apples have changed enormously. In Trentino-South Tyrol, which is home to the largest producers of organic apples in Europe with the producer organisations and VOG Products’ members VIP and VOG, 56,944 tonnes of organic products were harvested in 2018. The figure in 2022, in contrast, was 92,412 tonnes.

A trend that is also continuing in the organic quantities being delivered to VOG Products. In the 2022 financial year, this figure had already climbed to more than 32,000 tonnes. VOG Products processes and refines every third apple grown organically in Trentino-South Tyrol.

“We have been supporting this dynamic development for many years and are pursuing the objective of further expanding our leading position in the organic sector”, Christoph Tappeiner, CEO of VOG Products, explains. “We have been continually expanding our portfolio of organic products.”

VOG Products supplies high-quality products with the seal of the Bioland and Demeter organic farming associations and has also obtained the Bio Suisse certification. VOG Products has supplemented its organic range very recently with products certified according to Naturland standards. Naturland is the largest international association for organic farming in Germany and its guidelines go far beyond EU regulations. They also include targets for social responsibility and other key aspects of sustainability.

Play it safe with members’ products

What stands out about VOG Products is that organic raw materials are sourced from its own members in South Tyrol and Trentino. “Organic to us means ‘members’ products’, and this is recognised on the market. This gives our products a clear identity,” Tappeiner emphasises.

Full traceability back to the committed organic producers in the region – mostly small family farms – is coupled with strict controls along the entire supply chain. VOG Products guarantees safe, inspected and healthy food as well as continuous availability and security of supply year-round. This unique supply chain is presented by VOG Products under the name FROM Italian Alps (further information can be found at https://www.vog-products.it/en/from).

Customers’ demands in the baby food industry are particularly stringent. This continues to be one of the key customer segments for VOG Products in the organic sector. The semi-finished organic products are in demand among baby food manufacturers due to the strictly controlled supply chain as well as their high quality. The private label business of the food retail trade is gaining significance in the apple sauce sector, but organic also plays a major role for the apple juice industry.

Along with juices, concentrates and purées/pulp – also available in convenient small-sized packaging such as the “Bag-in-Box” – the South Tyrolean producer organisation also supplies organic-quality frozen fruits, cut and canned products and steamed fruits.

VOG Products, the South Tyrolean fruit processing company, not only processes increasing quantities of organic apples, but has also expanded its portfolio with Naturland-certified products. Of vital importance for customers is the regional origin of the raw materials that are sourced from the producer organisation’s members.

Supplies on the market for organic apples have changed enormously. In Trentino-South Tyrol, which is home to the largest producers of organic apples in Europe with the producer organisations and VOG Products’ members VIP and VOG, 56,944 tonnes of organic products were harvested in 2018. The figure in 2022, in contrast, was 92,412 tonnes.

A trend that is also continuing in the organic quantities being delivered to VOG Products. In the 2022 financial year, this figure had already climbed to more than 32,000 tonnes. VOG Products processes and refines every third apple grown organically in Trentino-South Tyrol.

VOG Products supplies high-quality products with the seal of the Bioland and Demeter organic farming associations and has also obtained the Bio Suisse certification. VOG Products has supplemented its organic range very recently with products certified according to Naturland standards. Naturland is the largest international association for organic farming in Germany and its guidelines go far beyond EU regulations. They also include targets for social responsibility and other key aspects of sustainability.

What stands out about VOG Products is that organic raw materials are sourced from its own members in South Tyrol and Trentino. Full traceability back to the committed organic producers in the region – mostly small family farms – is coupled with strict controls along the entire supply chain. VOG Products guarantees safe, inspected and healthy food as well as continuous availability and security of supply year-round. This unique supply chain is presented by VOG Products under the name FROM Italian Alps.

Customers’ demands in the baby food industry are particularly stringent. This continues to be one of the key customer segments for VOG Products in the organic sector. The semi-finished organic products are in demand among baby food manufacturers due to the strictly controlled supply chain as well as their high quality. The private label business of the food retail trade is gaining significance in the apple sauce sector, but organic also plays a major role for the apple juice industry.

Along with juices, concentrates and purées/pulp – also available in convenient small-sized packaging such as the “Bag-in-Box” – the South Tyrolean producer organisation also supplies organic-quality frozen fruits, cut and canned products and steamed fruits.

The Prognosfruit Conference is Europe’s leading annual event for the apple and pear sector, gathering growers from across Europe and beyond. Following last year’s successful return as an in-person event, Prognosfruit 2023 will take place in Trentino, Italy, from the 2nd to the 4th of August 2023. Registration is now open, and stakeholders and journalists are welcome to register via the Prognosfruit website.

Prognosfruit, the leading annual event for the apple and pear sector, will take place in Trentino, Italy, from the 2nd to the 4th of August 2023. Prognosfruit 2023 is organised by WAPA in cooperation with APOT (Associazione Produttori Ortofrutticoli Trentini). Registration is now open on the Prognosfruit website.

Alessandro Dalpiaz (APOT) commented on the event’s return to Trentino: “We are honoured to host in Trentino the most important international conference dedicated to apples and pears. Prognosfruit is certainly an important opportunity to present to the participants the ability of an organised system to deal with environmental issues, geopolitical crises, and market uncertainties. Prognosfruit also represents an occasion to bring the attention of the participants to those understated yet relevant values of mountain areas, with their arts, traditions, stories, and landscapes that attract and make millions of visitors think every year”.

Since 1976, Prognosfruit has released the annual forecast of apple and pear production for the upcoming season. This year, the three-day event during which the report will be released will see representatives of the sector gather to discuss the Northern Hemisphere situation as well as global perspectives for apples and pears. Following the Prognosfruit Conference on August 3rd, the delegates will have the opportunity to participate in technical and cultural visits to Melinda’s Underground Warehouses, San Romedio Sanctuary, and Valer Castle.

WAPA Secretary General Philippe Binard stated: “Last year’s edition reminded us all how important Prognosfruit and its three-day programme are for the apple and pear sector. Prognosfruit provides the opportunity for the delegates to meet up and discuss the latest developments and the future of the market, which is especially important in challenging times like the ones the sector is currently dealing with”.

The draft programme of Prognosfruit 2023 and the online registration form to attend the conference are both available on the Prognosfruit website.

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The ideal climatic and agronomic conditions in the Trentino-South Tyrol region provide VOG Products with a clear mission in addition to high-quality raw goods in secure quantities: what began on the region’s fields continues in the fruit processing facilities.

Trentino-South Tyrol looks back on a long fruit-growing tradition. After all, the climate with 300 sunny days per year and cool nights is ideal – growing conditions that are naturally reflected in taste and aroma. It’s no coincidence that VOG Products was established there in 1967. The great importance of agriculture is generally acknowledged throughout the region. Dealing with land and its resources respectfully and sustainably has always been firmly embedded in the culture there. There are good reasons why Trentino-South Tyrol regularly ranks at the top in comparisons of quality of life across Italy.

The region’s apple farmers can rely on a unique centre of excellence: a network comprising cooperatives, consulting structures, and renowned research institutes such as the Laimburg Research Centre, the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, and NOI Science and Technology Park supports them with advice and assistance.

Along the entire production chain – from qualified staff to state-of-the-art infrastructure –, nothing is left to chance. Each production step is structured and monitored. “That’s what is so special about this region,” affirmed Christoph Tappeiner, CEO of VOG Products. “It turns origin into a guarantee of security. We benefit from an ideal agronomic setting in which decades of experience are consciously combined with innovative approaches.”

This interplay ensures that technical aids and know-how are always at the cutting edge. For example, three-quarters of the areas under cultivation have frost-protection sprinklers, ensuring quantity security even in the event of freak weather.

The varietal strategies are another key indicator for innovation and advanced development. “On the one hand, if we think of Golden, the varieties are an expression of tradition. On the other hand, development takes place continuously in order to lift the region to a new level,” explained Tappeiner. New varieties such as Envy, Cosmic Crisp, Crimson Snow, Sweetango, Giga, Red Pop, Ambrosia, Enjoy, Morgana, Bonita and Tessa represent the new level. “This range of different varieties covers the entire spectrum from light to dark and sweet to sour.”

A total of 28,000 hectares of apple plantations make the Trentino-South Tyrol region Europe’s largest contiguous growing region. VOG Products processes and refines every fifth apple from the region.

“We know where the apples come from before they land in our safe, competent hands. Controlled, good raw goods are the indispensable basis for a safe, high-quality product,” said the director of VOG Products.

Today, the fruit processing company in the heart of the Dolomite Alps belongs to 18 cooperatives in South Tyrol and Trentino and 4 producer organisations with more than 13,000 members, most of which are small family operations that care for their apple orchards with love and devotion. A level of care that is decisive, particularly in the growing organic sector. By the way, South Tyrol is the only province outside of Germany with an active Bioland regional association.

“We put all our effort into continuing and supporting what began on the fields – thanks to processing that is monitored 24/7, innovative technologies, state-of-the-art methods of analysis and plants, and qualified staff,” said Tappeiner to summarise VOG Products’ mission.

Interpoma, nine guided tours to discover all the secrets of apple production in Trentino Alto Adige

The only trade show in the world dedicated solely to apple production is offering guided tours to farms and other businesses to see at first hand the innovations being introduced in the sector. The Interpoma Innovation tours and the Melinda Tour are this year’s big news.

Interpoma, the only international trade show dedicated to apples, to be held at Fiera Bolzano from November 15 to 17, has enriched its program with a series of guided tours reserved for apple sector professionals and the press, to promote the advanced production methods used in Alto Adige and demonstrate the highly innovative processing systems used here.

A total of nine daytime tours are planned, three to take place on Thursday November 15, five on Friday November 16, and one on the final day, Saturday November 17. Alongside the traditional tours looking at the organic sector and at technology, the big news this year will be the Interpoma Innovation Tours and the Melinda Tour. On Friday there will be an opportunity to take part in tours to look at innovation in the food sector, one in the morning and one in the afternoon: NOI Techpark, the Alto Adige technology park that brings businesses, researchers and students together to generate innovation, will show at first hand the work of startups operating in the food technology, automation, and green and alpine technologies sector. On Saturday morning, it will be the turn of Interpoma Tour Melinda, starting with a tour of MondoMelinda, the Consorzio Melinda visitor center in Segno di Predaia (TN), followed by a tour of the “underground cells”, vast galleries carved out of the rock, 275 m below the surface, which are used to store apples.

Moving on to the traditional tours, the first two will be for anyone particularly interested in finding out more about the organic sector; they will be run in parallel on the first day early in the morning. The destination will be Val Venosta, the apple-growing area par excellence, with a general presentation of the environment, a tour of the Vi.p Laces Bio Cooperative in Laces (BZ) and another tour of an organic apple farm.
The third and final tour on Thursday is scheduled for the afternoon and will visit Laives, where a general presentation will be given, followed by two tours, the first to an apple farm in the area, and the second to the “VOG Products” Cooperative, an innovative business processing fruit from Alto Adige and Trentino.

Friday will begin at 8.30 with a tour in the Bronzolo (BZ) area, during which there will be visits to Consorzio VOG’s “Grufrut” Cooperative and an apple farm in Magrè. The tour is expected to finish by 12.
The last two tours will run simultaneously (1.30 pm – 5 pm) in the afternoon. One will head for Vilpiano, with a tour of a Bolzano apple farm and the company “Egma/Fructus Meran”, which specializes in fruit processing and marketing. The other afternoon tour will be to Lana, to visit an apple farm and a checking station for spraying equipment.

Each tour costs 80 euros (including a trade show entry ticket) per person and reservations are already available online on the tours page of the official website: www.fierabolzano.it/interpoma/en/tour.htm.