Demand for avocados in the Korean market has gone from "zero to hero", according to a company responsible for representing and building consumer brands in the country.
Managing Director of Latitude Fintan Cannon says supply went from nearly no volume in 2013 to 19,000 tonnes in 2021. While it was largely driven by cultural reasons and brand presence in the market, he explains that it was not without challenges.
"In 2013 we began working with AVANZA who were interested in looking at the opportunities for growing the avocado category in South Korea," Mr Cannon said. "The feedback at the time was not very positive. We were going into retail buyers who were telling us that it was going to be difficult because the consumption occasion is not there. It wasn't going to be an easy fit to get avocado into a typical Korean diet. You'd have to make changes and they just didn't see it being a viable option. However, we did some trialling and market research and ultimately what we found there was that there was a curiosity among health-conscious, trendy, open-minded young consumers. The barrier to overcome was consumption occasion. How can we get avocado into people's hands in an easy and accessible way?"
Mr Cannon says they began with a simple smoothie recipe, which gained some traction and from there, they began a partnership with a big dairy conglomerate, and the access to consumers went from thousands to hundreds of thousands.
"As we increased tastings, popularity went up too," he said. "The category started to hit this inflection point, where avocados became more mentally available for the Korean consumer. That meant the Korean consumer was interacting with avocados much more in their daily life; they were seeing on TV, as well as on social media feed and their curiosity was starting to grow. As mental availability increased, so did physical availability. So, food service operators have their ears to the ground and are looking at trends and seeing what is popular, and they started to focus on avocados. They thought that there was an opportunity, especially with consumers going out to restaurants and recipes that use avocados."
There were different motivations for eating avocados based on demographics. Mr Cannon says that the older population were looking at the functional/nutritional side of the fruit and getting the health benefits from simple recipes, while the younger consumers were doing it for a signalling effect. This meant that they were wanting to capitalise on the trendiness and taking part in the social media crowd noise around the product.
"By this stage, it was on TV, on social media and in food service - so momentum simply took off," he said. "Generally, when you are trying to build a product, you are investing to get it or a brand to a certain point where you see it has an exponential effect and the sales and consumption, in this case of avocados goes through the roof."
Another consumption option he mentioned was in baby food, as the fruit is digestible and easy to consume, while couples without children are after new culinary experiences and eating out, as well as cooking more using avocado as a new ingredient. He added that it often competes with fruits like bananas which have similar traits, or those used in savoury dishes, rather than the sweeter fruits like berries and cherries which are more dessert products.
But despite the major jump in demand and consumption across the country especially in recent times, Mr Cannon points out that there is still a way to go, as it is a maturing market, and there needs to be more work done on supply and public education.
"There are still more ways to develop approachable consumption options," Mr Cannon said. "More marketing and consumer engagement would help to bring avocado consumption and the category to the next level in Korea. My colleague went to a popular salad bar not long ago and one of the additional options was avocado. After he ordered, the server came to him and said there is actually no ripe avocado available. That is currently a challenge for ensuring constant availability. When it is purchased in retail, it is purchased green. There is a hesitancy to bring out ripened fruit, so more ripening programs and education would definitely help with consumption."