South Africa's stonefruit and topfruit industry has revealed details of it winter marketing campaign in the UK, the first part of this year's 'Beautiful country, beautiful fruit' promotion.
The opening activities will see South African stonefruit promoted in-store and in the media, with the coldest December for over 100 years in the UK, a strong South African rand and generally tough market conditions expected to make it a challenging year for the fruit.
Additionally, the first week of the year saw temperatures in growing regions rise above 40oC, leading to previously high stonefruit volume forecasts being revised slightly downwards.
This will not dampen the campaign, however, with in-store, PR and advertising activity for plums, peaches and nectarines highlighting the flavour, superior quality and season of particular varieties, including Flavor King and Songold.
Marketing includes shopper sampling, advertising at point-of-sale and in-pack information in 4m punnets of the fruit across several of the major multiples in the country.
'A combination of factors, including the strength of the rand and unseasonably high temperatures at source, will make this a particularly testing year for South African exporters,' said Anton Rabe, executive director of grower organisation Hortgro Services. However, as we enter the second full year of our campaign we are feeling upbeat.
'This initiative is about highlighting the great quality fruit basket our country offers when it's at its most delicious, as well as the benefits of buying South African fruit, from the point of view of freshness and eating ethically,' he added. 'It shows our industry's ongoing commitment to the UK market post-deregulation; and we know from experience, that once you have established a strong identification and recognition amongst shoppers, it will stay with them for years to come.'
Following a pilot campaign for South African plums in 2009 and the first full cross-category promotion including stonefruit, topfruit, grapes and grapefruit in 2010, Hortgro commissioned agri-food consultancy Promar International to carry out an independent review of the rationale and results.
'We are very pleased to see the positive conclusions reached in the Promar report on the campaign,' said Mr Rabe. 'It shows that not only is the rationale for carrying out this promotion in the UK strong, we are also hitting the right targets with our choice of in-store and media activity.'
The overall design of the campaign has, meanwhile, been updated with new images and recipe photography on the website, www.beautifulcountrybeautifulfruit.com, while an in-store competition offers consumers the chance to win one of five holidays to South Africa.
Spokespeople Sophie Michell and Jasmine Harmon are again on board for the campaign, respectively contributing stonefruit and topfruit recipes and demonstrations; and being involved in a film about the ethical side of the South African fruit business.
The campaign has also linked with Dr Ian Stephen of the University of Bristol in the UK, who has recently released details of research which he believes proves a link between eating fresh produce and looking attractive - particularly related to dark, pigmented fruits such as stonefruit.
Looking ahead, the second part of this year's campaign will focus on topfruit, and is scheduled to begin in March, including on-pack promotions and sampling of blush pears such as Forelle. South Africa's Citrus Growers Association also plans to join the promotional campaign for the second season later in the year.
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