Client visits are core to our routine. CEO Thomas Diesinger recently spent a few days on site together with local insurer and the lead reinsurer visiting clients in Portugal. For more than two years now, together with a French partner broker, G&Co is active as a reinsurance service provider in the Portuguese agricultural market. We play a key role in helping to support reducing the protection gap in the market, which currently has an insurance penetration of less than 30% in the agricultural line of business.
Portugal’s climatic and topographic conditions allow for a large variety of crops, including olives, figs, citrus, mushrooms, sunflower, tomatoes, cereals, bananas (on Madeira Island) and pineapple (on São Miguel Island). Wine, table grapes, leaf vegetables, dairy, tomatoes for processing, rice, sugar beet, mushrooms, cork and olives all remain competitive. Improved marketing practices since the 1990s have resulted in an increased demand for fresh horticultural and fruit products of Portuguese origin in both the domestic and export markets. Portugal is amongst the top ten largest producers of olives in the world and is positioned within the top 20 of the largest producers in the world of pears, tomatoes and grapes.
Day one started with field visits to a cooperative of fruit growers that store, pack, and market several varieties of apple and Rocha pears in the Western region of the country, Abrigada, Carvalhal and Salir de Matos, where the technical aspects of packing and storing where also inspected.
The second day began by driving towards Palmela, on the peninsula of Setúbal in order to meet a local cooperative of vine growers. After lunch, the programme continued with visits to fruit producers in Odivelas to gain an understanding of the local plum and nectarine production, before continuing on to visit almond and olive plantations in São Brissos where almond growing is carried out by a 5th generation family-owned business with 100% own production. The local agronomist provided a very detailed overview on the latest technology for shelling, sizing and optical sorting as well as the associated economical parameters of the business.
G&Co is extremely proud to have been chosen by the local stakeholders as their valuable partner and we will continue to fully support and meet the local needs in the agricultural lines of business.
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