Interpoma, the only international fair devoted exclusively to apple cultivation, storage and marketing, to be held from Thursday 20 to Saturday 22 November 2014 in Bolzano, will again offer professional guests the possibility to discover all the secrets of the sector. The Bolzano Exhibition Centre, the Consortium of the South Tyrolean Apple and the Advisory Board for fruit and vine growing have organized two multilingual guided tours (in English, German and Italian) to visit modern apple production sites and fruit-growing cooperatives in South Tyrol. Both tours are scheduled on Wednesday 19 November (on the eve of the event) and on Friday 21 November, starting at 2 pm, from the meeting point in front of the main entrance to the Bolzano Exhibition Centre.

Tour 1 will first visit the Kuenburg Farm, at Bolzano/San Giacomo, with local experts from the Advisory Board for fruit and vine growing. This will be followed by a visit to the Fruchthof Überetsch Cooperative, founded in 1975, which has been a member of the VOG Consortium since 1998. Today this cooperative has 432 members, farming a surface of over 677 hectares.

Tour 2 will first visit the modern Tutzer apple production site at Bolzano/San Giacomo, with local experts from the Advisory Board for fruit and vine growing, after which it will move on to Laives to get first-hand experience of VOG Products, founded in 1967 as a second-level fruit-growing cooperative and now one of the largest companies in the whole of Europe which deals with the transformation and marketing of fruit for industrial use.

The price of the ticket to take part in one of these tours is 50 euros per person, including transfer by coach and entry to the fair.

Reinhold Marsoner, Director of the Bolzano Exhibition Centre, explains: "In a particularly delicate moment for our sector, which will witness a 9% increase in production throughout Europe and, at the same time, will have to deal with the problems of the considerable stock of 2013 production and with Russian sanctions, this year we have again confirmed the appointment with professional tours at Interpoma. We believe that, to maintain important shares of the market at international level, it is necessary to propose an offer of high quality and farsighted innovation. We shall therefore be very pleased to show our professional guests and visitors what South Tyrol is able to ensure today in the ever more complex sector of the apple."