Chinese taste for blueberries creates huge market demand

Hipsters and health nuts the world over want more avocados for their toast and blueberries for their everything. Enter Chilean grower Hortifrut SA.

The Santiago-based company has ramped up deal-making and expansion plans to boost production and meet demand. Now, it's poised to close a deal announced in October to pay $160 million for Peru's Grupo Rocio, that country's largest blueberry producer.

Together with expansion plans in Mexico, the US and China, that move will more than double berry production, including blueberries, to greater than 100 million kilograms in the current harvest from the previous year, Victor Moller, the company's chairman, said in a phone interview. And there's more to come.