The fruit and vegetable canned sector has also touched traditional foods by combining the delights of typical Tunisian recipes with the know-how of professionals in the sector.
For canned vegetables, it is a wide range of products such as mechouia salad, roasted peppers, chakchouka, eggplant caponata, grilled artichokes, vegetable macedonians prepared in sauce, olive pasta, etc.
Eight operators have taken an interest in this segment of elaborated products and are already producing a number of typical Tunisian products such as grilled salad or commonly known as ‘mechouia salad’. Four of these companies are already ISO 22000 certified.
The production of these items is mainly for export. As an example, the annual average of exports of mechouia salad over the last seven years has been around 1000 tonnes.
Concerning the processing of fruit, it occupies twelve units and develops especially around the production of jams of different fruits.
The production of canned fruit is of the order of 12,000 t/year for a theoretical capacity estimated at 20,000 t/year with quince, apricot, fig and strawberry jams as the main products.
The opportunities identified on the international market for Tunisian operators could possibly concern niche products such as top of the range jams (higher fruit content), dietary jams, jellies, marmalades, etc.
