GrubMarket Expands Into South America through the Acquisition of Salix Fruits

Today is a historic day for GrubMarket. We are thrilled to announce that we have completed the acquisition of Buenos Aires, Argentina-based Salix Fruits, a global fresh fruit importer and exporter with a wide portfolio of produce items ranging across apples, lemons, oranges, tangerines, pears, grapes and more. The company has hundreds of growers in more than 20 countries and serves over 450 customers across 50 countries worldwide, including Argentina, Chile, Brazil, South Africa, Spain, India, and the U.S.

Founded nearly 10 years ago by fresh fruit industry veterans Juan González Pita and Luis Elortondo, Salix Fruits is still managed by Pita (COO), alongside Alejandro Moralejo (CEO) and Daniel Calvo (CFO). Today, Salix Fruits is a leading company in the import and export of fresh fruit globally, shipping thousands of containers of product in 2021 and generating double-digit year-over-year revenue growth over the last several years. Salix Fruits also has a strong reputation as a proactive adopter of technology. After the acquisition, the business will continue to be managed by its current experienced and mission-driven leadership team.

Juan González Pita, co-founder and COO of Salix Fruits, enthusiastically shared: “We are excited to join the GrubMarket team and welcome the opportunities brought forth by GrubMarket’s robust technology platform and strong eCommerce supply and demand network. We strive to offer superior service, reliability and quality, as an importer and exporter of fresh fruit for our global customers, and also seek to further tap into a best-in-class grower network. We are thrilled to learn that GrubMarket shares this same goal and has built out such a well-integrated and much-needed eCommerce and technology-enabled platform to bring fresh food to so many important customers across the country. We have had the same vision about the need for a global fruit marketplace for many years. By joining with GrubMarket, we can make that vision come true. We are proud to be GrubMarket’s first South American acquisition and look forward to being a part of the continued South American expansion journey. We sincerely look forward to joining the GrubMarket team and bringing more organic and farmer-direct fresh food to GrubMarket’s end customers.”

Our own CEO Mike Xu excitedly added: “The acquisition of Salix Fruits marks our official expansion into South America, which shows our rapid and profitable growth capabilities in both domestic and international markets. We already have strong relationships with growers and producers in most South American countries, which have allowed us to become one of the largest suppliers of South American fruits in the U.S. Now through our acquisition of Salix Fruits, we will bring our eCommerce network effects and software technology capabilities to enable digital transformation on a global scale. Juan and the incredible team at Salix Fruits have scaled the company to achieve strong revenue growth and profitability. In addition, they are a forward-thinking team, with experience adopting new technology to their fresh fruit producers and customers. We are thrilled to welcome the Salix Fruits team to the GrubMarket family.”

As a part of GrubMarket’s portfolio, Salix Fruits will now utilize GrubMarket’s innovative and proprietary WholesaleWare software suite, the company’s software-as-a-service platform that provides food industry wholesalers and distributors with seamless financial management, powerful sales capabilities, intuitive online ordering, precise inventory management, lot traceability and tracking, grower accounting, automated routing and logistics support, and mobile applications.

This is a major milestone for us, but our expansion into South America and beyond is just beginning. Welcome to the GrubMarket family, Salix Fruits!