He commends the growers on producing a very good quality crop which meant a very low amount of fruit loss.
The estimate for this season is 30m trays of gold and 70m trays of green and smaller volumes of green organic also some sweet green kiwis. The sweet green will be marketed in Japan and China in the coming year. As the name suggests it is a sweeter type of green kiwi.
Lian Jager and Simon Limmer- Zespri.
Although the Chileans have always been present in Europe and pretty strong in North America, they are now also increasing their presence in Asia. But for Zespri these markets are also increasing and last year the company saw a very strong growth, particularly in China. "SE Asia is also a very fast growing market and our more traditional markets such as Japan, Taiwan, Europe and Korea are all performing well. We obviously had a real shortage of gold product last year so the balance between green and gold was not as good as we would have liked it to have been but we will be back to pre Psa volumes this year," explained Limmer.
The aim is to have a 50/50 green/gold production and the current New Zealand production is configured to achieve this within the next 3-4 years. Limmer said that gold is a very strong performer and they will have to build up their position in the market based on what has happened in the market in the last few years. Zespri is investing very heavily and expect the uptake of the SunGold variety to be very good. It will be the company's main focus for the coming years.
As well as continuing to supply the traditional markets and the growing Asian markets, Limmer says they are also looking at the emerging markets like South American and the Middle East where there is an opportunity to develop the category but they need to make sure that investment is keeping ahead of the supply.
Zespri are also working with a number of companies to develop e-marketing and social media as well as TV advertising in Asian countries where the cost of advertising is high and some people tend to trust their piers before the more traditional advertising sources.
As yet Zespri is not growing kiwis in China but Limmer does not rule it out, "It is still a few years away. We need to know what is going on there and work out a strategy. We are watching the situation very closely but there are many issues to consider, food safety and food quality are the two main concerns of consumers in China. We need to understand what the supply chains are and what the growing methods are, and we need to understand what sort of processes we can bring to China which would actually facilitate positive outcomes," states Limmer.
Zespri is continually investing in R&D and according to Limmer a red variety would have market potential if it had all the successful attributes needed to be a Zespri cultivar, "Firstly we need to make sure that any varieties we produce fit the bill. At the moment we just want to make sure the gold varieties are good enough." In the past there has been talk of an edible skin variety and according to Limmer this is also a possible future development.
For more information:
Rachel Lynch
Zespri
Tel: +64 27 509 1805
Email: rachel.lynch@zespri.com