During the past week South African consumers have been able to start enjoying Tango Fruit™ mandarins again, well before the local harvest. This is a follow-up to the successful introduction last year of locally grown Tango Fruit™ mandarins to Freshmark, the fresh produce division of Shoprite Checkers, the leading and biggest supermarket chain in Africa. The aim will eventually be to have Tango Fruit™ mandarins available year round on the supermarkets’ shelves.
The imported Tangos are offered in various packaging choices, with the largest fruit (calibre 1XX) sold loose, medium fruit sold in cartons and bags and smaller fruit sold in punnets in order of descending size.
Young Tango orchards are coming on-stream and volumes are expected to increase strongly in coming years.
Tango Fruit™ was introduced to South African consumers in 2017 and was received with great enthusiasm. “Tango Fruit™ is known to be a premium product with a good shelf life and fantastic eating quality and colour,” says Darren de Smidt of Stargrow Fruit Marketing. “It is already a very popular consumer choice.”
Dr Johan van Deventer, chief executive of Freshmark, which is the fresh produce category manager for Shoprite Checkers, said that the group was well satisfied with the consumer’s response to Tango. Importing Tango from Spain will help prolong the season for this beautiful, deep orange, easy peeler mandarin with no seeds. During the coming local season they expect to increase sales incrementally as more Tango becomes available.
"Promoting citrus with a strong focus on Tango, being the new kid on the block, will be very exciting."
Tango™ mandarins on the shelves in the fresh produce section of a Shoprite Checkers