Marketing kiwifruit in the Middle East brings its share of challenges, not the least of which is that the beginning of the selling season coincides with the religious festival of Ramadan.
For the month-long period, the Muslim population neither eats nor drinks during the hours of daylight, and in the United Arab Emirates, cafes are closed and it is illegal to eat or drink in public during that time.
On the upside, when Muslims break their daylight fast - called Iftar - in the evening, they have a full course meal including fruit.
"We have to adapt our programme to Ramadan. Our in-store sampling is suspended during the day and our promotions shift to Iftar instead," Zespri regional market manager for India, Middle East, Africa and the Americas, Ben Hughes, said.
This year Ramadan was in early June, and through to 2020 the festival will continue to coincide with the arrival of new season New Zealand kiwifruit.
Zespri has ramped up its marketing efforts in the region since 2012, although New Zealanders have been selling kiwifruit there since 1978. It is looking to grow sales by more than 50 per cent over the next five years to 2.3 million trays.
Although small by comparison with the company's overall global sales of 131.6 million trays, they are significant because the Middle East has a large and growing population of 218 million and does not grow much fruit itself, except dates, citrus and grapes.
Zespri is focusing on the Gulf states, although it also assessing the potential of Iran and Egypt. It set up an office in Dubai in 2015 with four staff, part of whose strategy is to communicate directly with consumers, unlike most other fruit traders in the region who operate as commodity sellers.
Hughes said they used digital marketing because people in the Middle East were very active on social media. They also found in-store sampling an effective way of getting the message across. At the moment Zespri is running a promotion in Kuwait where consumers can win daily prizes as well as shopping vouchers within a leading supermarket chain, LuLu.
Green and gold kiwifruit are sold in most countries, but Saudi Arabia is a SunGold-only market because the Saudis have a strong liking for its sweet, juicy taste.
Source: stuff.co.nz
