About us

Our company, the Alma 2000 Kft started operation in 1993 in the Transdanubian region, in Zala County. In the mid-90s in our country there were no up-to-date, modern apple orchards but as the Alma 2000 was established on the basis of a modern – Austrian and Italian – model, it quickly reached the level of a demonstration garden and workshop. Our company organised the first apple show in Hungary, which was a significant professional event on national level for years and provided a base for the popular professional meetings today.

Now we are engaged in farming on a 300-hectar area, which is divide among apple, cherry and apricot in the proportion of 1/3—1/3—1/3.
In addition to our fruit growing activity in 2015 we established a pine tree plantation on 80 hectares, where the pine trees are suitable for being used as Christmas trees.

Orchard
When our company was established, our main profile was apple that we grew in an area of nearly 200 hectares. We have gone through a number of changes during the years. In the mid-2000s we planted cherry trees in the place of the declining orchards due to the decreasing profitability of apple growing, and from 2010 we extended our orchard with apricot trees.

70% of the fruit orchard’s area is watered by a modern drip irrigation system so even in dry periods there is a solution for providing the necessary amount of water for the trees, by means of which the high quality of our fruits is guaranteed.

In 2005 and 2006 our orchards were seriously hit by hail so we started to install a hail net system. Nowadays 30% of the orchard is protected by a hail net. In addition to the hail net system we also possess an own hail cannon developed in Belgium. We have had a soil generator operating with silver-iodide installed as a part of the national hail damage mitigation system built by the Nemzeti Agrárgazdasági Kamara (Hungarian Chamber of Agriculture).

Environmental protection is an important aspect for us so we limit the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers to the minimum. every year we check the quality of the soil and the irrigation water and also have our fruit species tested for harmful chemical residues before they are sold.

Cold store and machinery
We can store our products in our modern cold store that has a capacity of nearly 2000 tons. We can provide a separate sorting hall for each fruit species and we have special sorting machine lines for each species. Sorting is carried out in accordance with size and colour on the computer-controlled machine lines. At the end of the conveyor belts, with the help of scales we can equalise the sorted fruit in accordance with the requirements of the customer.

Staff
The number of the permanently employed staff is 20-25, but as we pick the fruits of excellent quality manually, our demand for labour significantly increases during harvest time. In the summer the number of seasonal and temporary workers may reach 200-250 daily.

We have been the participants of the Göcseji Mezőgazdasági Géptalálkozó (Agricultural Machinery event of Göcsej) in Barlahida, which is a family day for us where our tractor drivers are eager to try their hand in the skills competitions.