Orchestrating Value Chains for Year-Round Citrus: Zano Fresh

Q: What is Zano Fresh, and what are its primary products and markets? 

A: Zano Fresh is a fresh citrus company serving the US market, vertically integrated across the entire value chain. We operate our own groves, collaborate with producers across various regions in Mexico and abroad, manage our own packing facilities, and have a distribution center in the United States to stay close to our final customers.

While Zano Fresh is a relatively young company with three years of operation, we are part of Citrofrut, a major agricultural group with over 60 years of experience in Mexican citrus agribusiness. Citrofrut specializes in the production, supply, and processing of citrus for juice, primarily orange juice. Throughout our history, the group has built global connections with top-tier retail and brand-name companies, with a strong focus on the United States.  

During my 15 years at Citrofrut, I supported the idea of fresh produce as the natural next step for the company. We initially began exploring this space through an Italian lemon grove and packing operation in Tamaulipas. This allowed us to learn the specific agricultural practices, packing requirements, and commercial landscapes of the produce market in the United States. The transition became official when the company integrated an operation in Martinez de la Torre, Veracruz. This facility belonged to a producer who supplied Citrofrut with oranges and grapefruits, but also included a production and packing operation for Persian limes. With that integration, we officially launched Zano Fresh. It represents the evolution of a 100% B2B agro-industrial juice company into a vertically integrated, fresh citrus grower-packer-shipper, bringing a new brand and identity to the produce market.

Q: How does maintaining packing houses in both Veracruz and Tamaulipas allow you to hedge against regional climate risks and logistical hurdles?

A: The inherent challenge of agribusiness is the extreme variability found in nature. Not only does every grove differ, but even a single tree produces fruit of varying sizes and grades. When you add the increasing unpredictability of climate change, the only viable solution is risk diversification. 

We mitigate these variables by diversifying our supply sources and our commercial outlets. While our primary footprint is in Veracruz and Tamaulipas, we maintain strategic alliances with producers across the Mexican Pacific, the Gulf, and even internationally. This multi-regional approach ensures that if one area faces a climate event, we can tap into another to maintain consistent volume.

Our operations are fundamentally rooted in the reality that Mexico is a cornerstone of the US food supply chain; since 25% of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States come from Mexico, our proximity allows us to deliver fresher products. This geographic strategy directly supports the value proposition we built for our clients, which rests on three core pillars. The first is a year-round supply, ensuring operational continuity so that retailers reduce the risk of supply gaps for their demand. For Persian limes, this is a constant 365-day operation, while for Italian lemons, we strategically fill the gap when California’s domestic production is unavailable. 

The second pillar is consistency in quality and price. Consumers expect a product that looks and tastes the same regardless of seasonal weather shifts, and retailers require price visibility to manage their own margins. We orchestrate the entire value chain to manage external volatility and deliver more uniformity.  Our third pillar focuses on variety. By offering a citrus portfolio and diverse packaging formats, we help our customers minimize logistical steps and optimize their distribution networks.

Q: What is the most significant logistical challenge in moving produce like citrus through the Mexico-US corridor to ensure maximum shelf life upon arrival?

A: Export-import mechanisms involve a rigorous series of documentation, certifications, and logistical hurdles, but the ultimate challenge lies in the orchestration of the value chain. This requires a deep understanding of the delicate relationship between production supply and market demand to predict behaviors weeks in advance. In agribusiness, increasing your visibility into these fluctuations is the most complex and interesting part of the trade. 

When analyzing the Tex-Mex corridor specifically, there are two distinct sides to the challenge. On the Mexican side, the primary obstacle is industry compliance.  As an institutionalized exporter, we operate under regulatory, labor, and phytosanitary standards. The challenge in fragmented markets is that compliance frameworks are not always consistent across all participants, which makes industry-wide standardization an important long-term goal.

On the US side, where we act as importers and distributors, the main challenge is information asymmetry. There is a profound disconnect between the demand signals and the reality of production. Because agricultural products are commodities, price swings can be extreme. These fluctuations often breed distrust among customers who do not understand why costs are shifting so radically.

Q: What could help Zano Fresh and the citrus industry to better address these challenges? 

A: To bridge this gap, we must focus on two things: industry standardization and customer education. We need an industry that follows uniform rules for a more equitable competition and more available information for customers to better protect their organizations in terms of compliance

Beyond that, we must move past fragmented communication. Currently, a buyer might receive different production signals from several different regions: Jalisco, Veracruz, Yucatan, or overseas. Without a unified narrative, the client is left confused and suspicious of the quality and pricing they receive.

The solution is a stronger industry connection and organization. There are successful models in other commodities, where industry organizations provide a clear supply & demand roadmap. This level of coordination reduces information asymmetry and allows the entire supply chain to flow more efficiently. 

Q: As water scarcity becomes a structural issue across Mexico, what non-negotiable irrigation or soil-management technologies is Zano Fresh prioritizing?

A: This is a collective effort across both Zano Fresh and Citrofrut. As growers, we are constantly analyzing how to maximize resource efficiency, particularly water, which is the most precious asset in agriculture. We utilize technologies that measure irrigation effectiveness to ensure maximum efficiency. We monitor exactly when the plant is most receptive to hydration, getting into that level of detail to maximize absorption and eliminate waste. Irrigation coordination through technology and precise scheduling significantly reduces the water footprint. 

Beyond water management, we are committed to being a socially and environmentally responsible organization. In addition to having PrimusGFS GLOBALG.A.P. and SMETA certifications to ensure our daily operations meet global benchmarks for social responsibility and food safety practices, our group is part of the UN Global Compact and has clear sustainability goals in terms of people, planet and prosperity.   

Q: Which piece of advice would you give to a producer who is seeking to diversify from the US market for the first time?

A: Successfully entering international markets requires a profound understanding of the global dynamics between supply and demand. Agriculture is a fully globalized sector; production in South Africa, for instance, directly impacts product availability in the US or the European Union. You must identify who the global producers are, their specific production windows, and the consumption patterns of the target countries. The goal is to find blue ocean opportunities, specific windows where demand is underserved, rather than shipping high volumes at the same time as every other producer, which only devalues the commodity for everyone.

Once you have identified a market based on these dynamics, the next priority is regulatory compliance. Every country has its own nuances regarding how they receive fruit, and these sanitary and legal regulations must be audited thoroughly. However, technical compliance alone does not guarantee success. Because produce is highly perishable, entering a new market without a secured client is a high-risk gamble.

You must align with a customer before the fruit leaves the grove. Furthermore, these clients often have quality specifications and requirements that are even more stringent than those of the local government or health authorities. To maximize the value of the crop and prevent loss, you have to map every single step the fruit will take, ensuring there are no bottlenecks from the field to the final destination.

Q: What is the most important objective for Zano Fresh to achieve before the end of 2026?

A: Zano Fresh aims to become a leading distributor of Persian limes and other citrus products in the United States by 2030. Over the past few years, we have meticulously refined our agricultural capabilities, supply chain logistics, and packing quality. Today, our strategic focus has shifted heavily toward the commercial landscape.

Our primary objective for 2026 is to open new sales channels within the United States, specifically targeting the retail and food service sectors. While many Mexican firms enter the US market through third-party importers, we act as our own importer. This vertical integration requires us to actively develop and manage our own customer portfolio to accommodate our increasing fruit volumes. We are encouraged by the volume growth we have achieved in our first three years and are on a clear trajectory to become a leading player in the citrus category.

We are expanding our footprint with major retailers. In this industry, growth often happens incrementally; you begin by servicing one or two of a client’s distribution centers, and as you prove your reliability, you gain access to their broader network. To support this, we have a distribution center in McAllen, Texas, and we are expanding our commercial team as part of our plan to build the expansive client base needed to match our increasing supply and achieve our long-term distribution goals.

Zano Fresh is a vertically integrated grower-packer-shipper of Mexican citrus that manages the entire supply chain, from nursery tree production to international delivery.