South Africa's first promotional drive to sell plums in the UK will be backed by a high-quality, well-sized crop, with shipments expected to hit 8.4m 5.25kg carton equivalents.
The forecast, which also pegs overall South African stonefruit shipments at 12.25m cartons, is encouraging in the run-up to the January campaign. The crop is expected to be down slightly on 2007/08's record crop of 12.6m cartons of stonefruit.
'Growing conditions have been good and we expect a high-quality crop,' said Stefan Conradie, product manager for the South African stonefruit industry. 'We did, however, experience lower fruit set in some areas as a result of more rain during the flowering period in September, which should lead to an increase in larger-sized fruit.'
The UK drive will promote South African plums during the fruit's main January-March marketing window, and is being run as a joint venture between the South African government and South African plum producers with the support of the Fresh Produce Exporters Forum.
'Trading conditions will no doubt be tougher this coming season due to the worldwide financial crisis, but we are cautiously optimistic about the coming season for South African stonefruit,' Mr Conradie said. 'Growing health trends and creating more awareness of the benefits and the value of fresh fruit is expected to support consumer demand for our products in these tougher trading conditions.'
Consumers will be targeted with a range of in-store activities in leading supermarkets such as Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco, including tastings, recipes, leaflets and advetorials. This will be supplemented by public relations activities fronted by Jasmine Harman from Channel 4's A Place in the Sun.
'The chief objective of this new campaign is to introduce the British consumer to in-season plums from the popular tourist destination of South Africa,' Mr Conradie explained. 'It's a very exciting first step for our stonefruit growers, which could pave the way for initiatives to promote other South African fruits in our traditional and loyal UK market.'
