A visit by New Zealand Prime Minister John Key to apple producers in the country’s Tasman region has drawn comments about shortcomings in the industry’s export structure.
Prime Minister Key spent yesterday visiting growers around Nelson on the tip of New Zealand’s South Island, reported the Nelson Mail.
Speaking to Mr Key during the visit, Mariri grower Richard Easton – former chairman of industry body Pipfruit New Zealand – said the industry needed a single desk export model like the kiwifruit sector’s Zespri system, along with a single nation-wide export brand.
Mr Easton stated that since deregulation of the country’s apple industry in 2001, exporters had been undercutting each other in foreign markets and ruining returns.
“There isn’t a lot of heart in the apple industry now,” he said. “People have lost heart.”
But while the industry is definitely was facing some challenges, Mr Easton’s was not a mainstream view, according to Pipfruit New Zealand’s current CEO Peter Beaven.
“The majority of the industry would not support a return to the single desk,” he told Fruitnet.com.
“Most `of the industry` would agree we need to be better coordinated. We’ve replaced a single desk system with nothing, with no coordination. But we need to find somewhere between the two options.”
During the visit, Mr Key said it was difficult for the government to help the apple industry coordinate if there wasn’t internal agreement in the sector.
But moves within New Zealand’s apple industry to work together on export marketing plans have been in development, according to Mr Beaven.
A national New Zealand apple brand is being worked on, with a generic ‘100% Pure Apples from New Zealand’ brand already appearing in trade and consumer marketing campaigns.
That project has been gained a lot of industry support, according to Mr Beaven.
The sector has also this season been working on aBraeburn marketing programmein Europe, where returns for the variety have been less than stellar over the last few seasons.
“There’s certainly been a lot of discussion,” Mr Beaven said. “And there’s going to be more meetings. But I think we’ll end up addressing this on a market by market and variety by variety basis.”
He said the New Zealand apple sector is aware of the hurdles it faces, and that exporters know the free and deregulated nature of exports means improvement must come from internal industry agreement.
“Everybody is beginning to understand that. With freedom comes responsibility.”
