The San Alfonso cooperative, a benchmark in the cooperative world in the Valencia Region, and the Clasol group, a producer and marketer of citrus and other fruit, have launched a novel alliance which until now has been unheard of in the Valencian agri-food sector. With the entry of all the Clasol companies into the cooperative (it already had some associates) and the purchase by San Alfonso of half of Clasol, citrus growing in Castellon now has a large group with a turnover of “more than 120 million euros”, the result of the sum of the more than 70 million euros budgeted by San Alfonso and the more than 50 million euros from Clasol.
This was stated this Tuesday by their two main representatives, the President of San Alfonso, Emilio Balaguer, and the CEO of Clasol, César Claramonte, at an event in Valencia where they announced the merger, after it was approved last Thursday by the members of the cooperative. The result is a powerful group in terms of production (San Alfonso, which three years ago definitively integrated Agroal, manages and sells more than 100,000 tonnes of citrus), but with Clasol it has added marketing and distribution power and even diversification of production, as it grows and works with other fruit, including melon, watermelon, persimmon and stone fruit.
Some of these are produced in Murcia, where Clasol also has a handling centre, specifically in Calasparra. This warehouse is one of the most important warehouses in the region.
