BerryWorld is excited to announce the start of this year’s South African blueberry season, with its first MBO varietal offer arriving in the UK and Europe in August.
BerryWorld, South Africa forecast a total seasonal supply of more than 6,000 tonnes across the August to January window, representing growth of over 30% on last year. Jason Richardson, Managing Director of BerryWorld, South Africa explains, “This season is exciting for so many reasons. We are expanding our production, including some new territories. We are expanding and developing our loyal customer base and we also continue to develop our IP and systems through dedicated R&D work. But nothing can be more exciting than supplying our customers with our MBO varietal offer. With its superior size, crunch and flavour profile we are confident that blueberry consumers around the world will be suitably delighted during the 2018 season’’.
Each market is evolving at a different pace, but one thing remains constant, blueberry sales are growing, and consumers are demanding better flavour, size and shelf life in all territories. Take more mature markets such as the UK, blueberry sales have nearly tripled over the last 10 years, driven by new shoppers coming in, but also through more regular visits and purchasing larger packs. Those seasoned blueberry shoppers are also responsible for the growth of the premium offer, showing how some of the UK’s 13.5m blueberry shoppers are becoming increasingly discerning.
Chloe Butler, Category Manager explains that “even in these mature
Mountain Blue Orchards
markets, there are still opportunities to drive penetration. Kantar data for the UK shows that in the 12w/e 31st December 2017, market penetration on blueberries was 22.1% compared to a summer average of 36% for the May to July 2018 window.” The MBO varietal offer gives BerryWorld the opportunity to bridge the typical gap between end of Polish and UK, bringing South African supply into Europe as early as possible to continue to delight blueberry shoppers and maintain high levels of market penetration.
At the close of 2014, BerryWorld secured exclusive growing rights to the Mountain Blue Orchards (MBO) programme for Europe and Africa and exclusive selling rights of that production. “There are lots of new exciting varieties coming through, some of which have already been awarded Superior taste awards by the iTQi – this varietal offer will give us an ongoing offer of great flavour profiles and texture characteristics, firm berries with a wonderful pop – a great balance between sweet and more acidic berries to meet the needs of every nation’s palette and step change the blueberry offer. We have also found that blueberries from the programme consistently outperform on size, surpassing benchmarks set in the current world records” said Adrian Olins, Chief Commercial Officer.
BerryWorld has very significant MBO plantings and volumes available from Northern Hemisphere territories such as Morocco, Spain and Portugal to ensure a 52-week supply of these. A year-round offer, combined with our marketing expertise, allows our business to meet the needs of retail markets across the globe.
For more information;
Gloria Lopez Marin
BerryWorld, Group
Tel: +44 1992 473013
Mob: +44 7885 459446
Gloria Lopez Marin
BerryWorld, Group
Tel: +44 1992 473013
Mob: +44 7885 459446