Sofruce, ever ambitious

Sofruce, a family business headed by Grégory Cebrian, the grandson of its founder, continues to grow with a turnover of 87 million Euros in 2018.

Specialising in the import and export of fresh fruit and vegetables for more than 50 years, Sofruce has a long played a major part in the berry industry, but the scope of Sofruce’s activities has broadened in recent years and now rests on 3 major pillars, berries, citrus and tomatoes.  In this context of strategic development Fabien Lefebvre has now joined Sofruce in the capacity of Managing Director, “We have big ambitions for Citrus, in particular with regard to the Moroccan clementine, where we see a market potential of 35 000 tons.   Similarly we are seeing double-digit growth in tomatoes, notably in the small segmentation tomato where we have become indispensable.” Of the berries the strawberry is still the leader with 18 000 tons sold in 2018, the main focusses for development are now raspberry and blueberry.   Sofruce is also a major player on the melon market starting from the month of March.

“Maria” the platform for producers

While Sofruce offers its clients “tailor-made” solutions out of Perpignan and Rotterdam, Grégory Cebrian created a new company in 2018, Maria, the purpose of which is to organise the “complete direct shipment of productions”.  Strengthened by this unique offer Sofruce has concluded some exclusivity agreements with two of its long-term partners, COPAG (120 000 tons of citrus and 40 000 tons of early vegetables to Morocco) and Rosaflor (300 hectares to tomato greenhouses and melons in Agadir and Dakhla).

“Our added value lies in our in-depth knowledge of international markets.  With customer satisfaction at the heart of all we do, we also lend support to our producers.   Selection of variety, crop rotation, we get involved far up the chain with the aim of guaranteeing optimal remuneration for our producers, positive social impact and a continuous improvement process”.

Other partnerships are currently in development, in particular in Spain and Morocco, but also from complementary origins,

“in order to select the best match of soil and variety and to give us a longer marketing schedule”.