The World Citrus Organisation presents its 2022-2024 Strategy bringing together the citrus community at Fruit Attraction 2022

The World Citrus Organisation (WCO) is the platform for dialogue and action for the global citrus community, uniting citrus-producing countries and citrus stakeholders to facilitate collective action in the citrus sector, for both fresh and processed categories. On 4-5 October 2022, in the setting of Fruit Attraction in Madrid, the WCO hosted two separate citrus-focused events to bring together the citrus community. During the WCO Conference on October 4, the WCO and citrus stakeholders discussed issues affecting the global citrus industry and ways to ensure citrus positioning. The WCO Conference agenda included guest speakers on positioning citrus in the current retail environment and communicating citrus to consumers to increase consumption, the launch of the WCO Strategy for 2022-2024 as well as a snapshot of a new Citrus Statistical Book with the latest citrus sector market data.

The WCO Strategy 2022-2024 will focus on establishing the organisation as a global citrus hub for the benefit of the sector worldwide. This includes strengthening the connection between stakeholders within the citrus community, better positioning citrus fruits in the food sector, increasing citrus consumption, and enhancing the sector’s sustainability. WCO Northern Hemisphere Co-Chair José Antonio Garcia Fernandez commented, “We are happy to host the WCO meeting in Spain during Fruit Attraction. From the very beginning since the foundation of the WCO in 2019, the Spanish citrus sector has been committed to work together with other citrus producing countries, strengthening cooperation, and fostering common activities based on a win-win strategy. Ensuring economic sustainability with fair process for citrus growers worldwide is one of our main goals”. WCO Southern Hemisphere Co-Chair Justin Chadwick added, “Collectively we have the common objective of getting more consumers to consume more of our delicious, nutritious and safe citrus fruit. There are many activities that can be tackled collectively to ensure that consumers have fruit readily available all year round, at affordable prices and good quality. The WCO is a relatively young organisation, these events help to confirm our members needs and jointly plan how we fulfil them”. The WCO Strategy 2022-2024 is available on the WCO website here.

The WCO also hosted a WCO Networking Event on 5 October for its members and the wider citrus community to discuss the latest sector and market developments in an informal setting. The WCO Networking Event provided a forum for citrus stakeholders from around the globe to meet in person. The event contributed to WCO’s work in strengthening the sense of a global citrus community where stakeholders can discuss and exchange ideas and information on common issues affecting the sector.