Pomegranates, the new bet from Viña Apaltagua

Since the year 2000, Viña Apaltagua owns 80 hectares of pomegranates, with a production potential of 1 to 2 million kg of fruit.  This has opened the possibility to use the raw material as a base for new Apaltagua products.

In 2017, in order to take advantage of the pomegranate production, Apaltagua built a packing plant with cooling and refrigerating chambers totaling an investment of USD 1 million.

After two years of researching different alternatives, the Development and Enology areas of the company created several industrial products based on pomegranates: fresh fruit, juice, jam and a sparkling wine.

The sale of the above products escalated much faster than expected.

Viña Apaltagua’s CEO, Rodrigo Abarzúa, says “Projections are very good. Through the exporter company, we already have two customers from the Netherlands. We began selling our new products at full speed and we already have additional orders from Belgium, the USA and Brazil.  The biggest production is that of sparkling wine and this product will soon be available in one of Chile’s most important retailers”.

Pioneers elaborating products from pomegranates

With no doubt, Vitapome, the pomegranate juice, has been very successful.   The product was officially launched at the end of March 2017.  “The juice has received excellent reviews and comments.  Our consumers are interested in an innovative product and they are happy to taste a 100% natural, healthy and high quality product made in Chile”, says Abarzúa.

Viña Apaltagua expects to invoice approximately US$300.000.000 within the next 12 months. “The most important and motivating reason for this project is the innovation of excellent pomegranate products. We are aiming to be the number 1 brand in pomegranate juice as well as pioneers in the development of new products from this fruit. Today we are the first company producing a 100% natural, cold pressed pomegranate juice, and the first producers of Chilean pomegranate sparkling wine” the CEO concludes.