Citronex is a family-owned company that already has ripening facilities in Poland. Romania and Hungary are expanding into Western markets. Marek Szulc, COO of Citronex, has high ambitions for the new facility: "The new ripening facility is being built in Zele, Belgium. Citronex's ripening capacity already exceeds half a million cartons of bananas per week, strengthening our position in Europe. We're aware that the market in Western Europe is different from what we know in Poland, Romania, or Hungary. That is why we've been trying to prepare well for this for a long time. We started our analysis by choosing a location for the banana ripening facility."
© CitronexSzulc sees great potential, not only in the Belgian and Dutch markets, but also in France and western Germany: "After a detailed analysis, we concluded that the Antwerp area in Belgium would be the best from a logistics point of view. We managed to find a new warehouse in Zele, which offers us many opportunities. We are 30 km from the port of Antwerp, which is very important, given the recent changes in the routing of the largest shipping companies. We believe that this port will become more and more important every year. We are less than 300 km from Paris, 250 km from Dortmund, and only 150 km from Rotterdam."
"We treat our facility in Zele a bit like our ripening facility in Hungary. Although we are in Budapest, it is easy for us to deliver bananas to Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Austria on a daily basis. There are more similarities. We built all our ripening facilities in Romania, Poland, and Hungary according to the same pattern. They all work together; shortages in one place are made up for by deliveries from other ripening facilities. At the same time, the purchasing process is centralized. We buy large quantities for all ripening facilities at the same time, which makes it easier for us to negotiate with suppliers. Today, we ripen about 400 truckloads of bananas per week, and after opening a warehouse in Belgium, these quantities will certainly increase. In addition to good service, our customers appreciate the quality of our bananas. They all come from South America. We focus mainly on Ecuador because the quality is stable and the additional shelf life helps with sales on store shelves. This is a big difference compared to bananas that come from Africa or Martinique, for example."
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According to Szulc, Citronex's many years of experience, gained while working in several countries, will be important for the development of new markets: "We have experience not only in building banana ripening centers, but also in working with supermarket chains in various formats. In addition, we've decided to strengthen our team. Michaela Kossarova has been working with us for some time now and has already become well acquainted with our company, its principles, and the values we uphold. She will take up the position of Operations Director at our Belgian company, Yellow Fresh Fruits BV."
Kossarova's experience at a large UK supermarket will be a great asset for Citronex, Szulc states. "As lead buying manager and category buying manager for over five years at Tesco, she handled bananas on a daily basis, buying and selling them not only in the UK, but also in Central Europe. She knows bananas not only from the suppliers' side, but also from the inside, how it works in the largest supermarket chains. I am sure that her experience will play a major role in our Belgian project."
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"The ripening facility in Zele is scheduled to start operating in November this year. It will certainly be the most modern facility in this part of Europe. We want to start 2026 100% ready. We would like to invite anyone interested in our project in Belgium to contact Michaela directly," Szulc concludes.
For more information:
Michaela Kossarova
Yellow Fresh
[email protected]
Marek Szulc
Citronex I Sp. z o.o.
[email protected]
www.citronex.pl/en