India and China are becoming increasingly viable options for Australia’s blueberry exporters, industry figures heard over the weekend at the Australian Blueberry Growers Association annual conference.
The conference was held on the 14-17 October in Launceston, Tasmania.
Attendees heard that global blueberry consumption had been growing 30 per cent a year, reported the ABC.
Rising demand in India and China are making the markets increasingly interesting for Australia, said Peter McPherson, CEO of the country’s largest blueberry grower-exporter BerryExchange.
“Only last week I had enquires there to send product there from both those countries, first time ever,” he said.
“We do most of our shipments by air to keep the freshness, but the fact that those countries are closer than, say, Europe to us, we could look to do sea freight shipments under modified atmosphere.”
He said that while proximity to Asian markets was one of the biggest strengths, the cost of labour was the biggest challenge for Australian blueberries, the ABC report stated.
Blueberry consumption in China in particular has been on the rise over the last several years, pushed by increasing domestic production.
Several Southern Hemisphere blueberry suppliers, such as Australia and Chile, have identified opportunities to supply that demand counterseasonally.
