agerly awaiting summer, consumers have been stocking up on exotic fruit, sending sales through the roof.
For instance, melons have the largest value share of exotic fruits at 35 per cent and have seen a growth of 12 per cent in value and 11 per cent in volume. Other popular fruits include pomegranates, sharonfruit, figs and avocados.
The South African avocado season is progressing well, with ideal weather conditions for harvesting, according to Derek Donkin, chief executive of the South African Avocado Growers’ Association, which is expecting a good export crop of 12.5 million 4kg cartons (50,000 tonnes). “Fruit quality to date has been good,” he says. “A good crop together with good quality enables South African exporters to supply the market according to demand and according to specific customer requirements.
“The use of technologies such as SmartFresh and Controlled Atmosphere will enable the South African industry to supply the market until mid-October.”
Hass is the most important export cultivar from South Africa and will make up at least 55 per cent of the exports this year. Smaller volumes of Maluma Hass and Carmen are also exported. “There has certainly been an increase in avocados due to poor supply in previous years and now finally there is far more fruit,” says one industry source. “Prices have increased year-on-year, but this year it’s been reasonably stable.”
Avocados are not the only fruit to peak this season - mangoes are also hugely in demand at the moment. “There has been plenty of supply of mangoes in the first five months of the year - Peruvian, Costa Rican, Puerto Rican and from the Dominican Republic and the Ivory Coast. Quality has been good and there are lots of promotions which explain the volume increase.”
Such is the demand for good-quality mangoes that one importer is also about to start importing the fruit from Israel. Right now the market is really strong for mangoes, passionfruit and figs, says David Vaknine, UK branch manager of Agrexco. “We are trying to meet the demand but it hasn’t been easy because the winter was cold in Israel so they are a bit delayed. We should receive a shipment in about a week or so.” Melons, however, are notably absent from his repertoire this season. “Last season we had a large supply of Israeli Galia melons but, this year, the UK market prices are low for melons so the Israeli growers have been unable to export to us.”
The low UK prices are a sore point for many importers. One industry insider, who did not want to be named, told the FPJ the latest Kantar figures, which show a value growth of 6.3 per cent and a volume growth of 4.4 per cent, do not give the real picture. “These figures are misleading. The growth has come simply from an oversupply situation during the Brazilian season mainly caused by one irresponsible grower flooding the (European) market. This poor marketing had a knock-on affect with the Central American season, which basically never had a chance to get off the ground due to the pressure of the extra-long Brazilian season. In other words, volume growth came from retailers taking advantage of the oversupply situation and pushing through deep-cut promotions. It did not come from a natural increase in demand.”
An excessive amount of promotions do more harm than good, by confusing shoppers, he claimed. “In my opinion it simply confuses the consumer as to the real value of the produce, which dramatically slows sales when retail levels get anywhere near where they actually need to be to make this a sustainable business.”
In terms of the retailers’ strategy, he believes they will continue down the same path. “The retailers will continue to take advantage of any opportunity to drive down prices and push for promotions - especially in the current economic climate. It’s a matter of survival for everyone in the food chain but especially so for the grower and we must not lose sight of that.” -
PIPS AND STRIPS
Not since the 1960s have US watermelons been exported to the UK, leaving Brits with a more limited offer of the juicy summer favourite. Now grand plans are being hatched to bring east coast watermelons back to our shores. Lisa Kjellsson finds out more
Ever heard of Sprite, an Asian watermelon variety that looks like a pumpkin but tastes like a pear? If you haven’t, it’s not all that surprising, given the relatively limited range of watermelon available in this country.
This, however, is set to change, as the US watermelon industry is drawing up plans to resume exports to the UK, after it stopped several decades ago.
“We’ve been looking at the UK for the past few years,” says Gordon Hunt, director of marketing at the Florida-based National Watermelon Promotion Board. “It hasn’t been an easy project because no one here has exported to the UK since the 1960s due to the stringent regulations. But now we finally have GlobalGAP-certified packhouses on the east coast.”
As watermelons have a very short shelf life - roughly 21 days - they have to be shipped over quickly. “Our guys on the east coast are no more than 30 minutes away from a port,” says Hunt, adding that shipping costs for refrigerated containers is lower than usual, something the industry is understandably excited about.
The plan is to supply the UK for most of the year, as the US watermelon season starts in south Florida and works its way up the east coast.
“As the crop moves from the south to the north we can be shipping from April through to September, maybe even longer, which means UK retailers could count on getting US watermelons from the spring through to the autumn,” explains Hunt.
The main selling point, however, is that the Americans have so many different watermelon varieties. Hunt, who at one point lived in the UK, was appalled by the lack of choice. “The stuff I found in UK stores when I was living there was watery and frankly rubbish! Unless you’ve been to Florida you haven’t seen the quality of watermelon we take for granted here.”
What the National Watermelon Promotion Board is therefore planning to do is to bring varieties such as Yellow-flesh and Orange-flesh watermelon to selected UK stores on a trial basis for in-store sampling. “We’re working with a few growers in North Carolina to introduce these different types of melons grown on the east coast of the US to UK supermarkets,” explains Hunt.
As part of the promotional drive, the board will offer supermarkets the chance to send over US watermelon queens to do in-store sampling, hand out marketing material and speak to customers about the product.
Watermelon is the only type of produce in the US to have multiple queens. Every state or region where there is an association for commercial watermelon production chooses a queen, who is trained to promote the product and then competes to become the national champion. The queens appear on TV and radio and travel all over the world to boost sales. “We want to send the North Carolina queen as it’s her product that is being shown. The plan is to do some consumer-facing promotional activity with a major UK retailer,” says Hunt.
To this end, last year the National Watermelon Promotion Board sent over some samples to Vidafresh, which is now liaising with US watermelon growers. “It could completely transform the UK watermelon offer,” says Hunt. -
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