Since the formation of The Summerfruit Company - a marketing joint venture between Redbridge AFI and Worldwide Fruit - the priority for management has been to combine two different styles and cultures. “It has been a bit of a learning experience to get involvement, and for people to understand the communication process,” says marketing director Steve Maxwell. “It has come together now. Initially there was a degree of strangeness because there were no relationships established. The challenge has been about getting the right people involved at the right time - it has come together forcedly, but organically.”
Maxwell explains how 2003 was a learning year for both groups but now all the feedback received during the year must be implemented in 2004. He continues: “The target is to improve the interaction among the growers themselves and to ensure that everyone knows exactly who can answer their questions directly with the correct information, whether it is sales, finance or procurement wise. We have increased the staff levels, mostly on the commercial support front - people who can work with the growers and packers on the planning side.”
The Summerfruit Company aims to promote sales of UK-grown fruit for 70 growers based throughout the UK. By aggregating soft-fruit supplies and making communication seamless, the joint venture strives to ensure that its growers know what retailers want and in turn retailers are aware of growing conditions, with both focusing completely on the consumer.
“The focus is to have a push-supply base, so that consumer demand is used in planning and allows us to maximise opportunities and achieve the highest sales that we can,” says Maxwell. “We don’t want to plant strawberries for the sake of it as there is a danger of having too much fruit at the wrong time of year. It is very much about knowledge when planning your strawberry crop on a weekly basis - where it is going and how much is required. This is the slight danger for the sector, that may result in too much fruit at times, making it unprofitable for all in the industry as it results in distressed selling.”
According to sales director Ian Waller, the UK berry industry continues to experience extremely good growth. Recent 52-week figures, including UK production and imports, suggest that strawberry sales have grown by more than 18 per cent, the raspberry category has grown 30 per cent and the blueberry category by 50 per cent plus. UK production is supported by UK multiples who find backing local production, be it English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish production, is a very good marketing tool.
“The cooler weather this year has delayed production a little but we are expecting very good volumes of fruit throughout June, July and August,” says Waller. Now in its second soft-fruit season, The Summerfruit Company expects to market over 6,000 tonnes of fruit during the coming local season - 140t were picked in mid-May and 300t are expected for Wimbledon. In addition, demand for blueberries and raspberries also looks good and both categories should enjoy good growth figures in the foreseeable future - raspberry volumes should be 550t, 20 per cent up on last year, boosted by the introduction of two new varieties, Octavia and Brice.
European demand for berries is also increasing at a similar pace to the UK. Waller says that they are seeing a more competitive marketplace in mainland Europe, with competition for all overseas berry production. “With the strong pound of three years ago looking unlikely to return in the very near future, we have to compete with Europe for fruit on a daily basis. Through Redeva we are building very strong alliances with all the major breeding programmes around the world and this is enabling not only the exchange of breeding parental material to create new varieties, but also giving The Summerfruit Company access to the best varieties from these world breeding programmes,” explains Waller.
Redeva is Redbridge’s soft fruit r&d company. With trial sites around the world, Redeva’s breeding efforts are on a global scale and aim to produce varieties for production in both the UK and abroad. And with the addition of 10 new EU countries, Waller believes the future looks exciting. He says although competition for fruit will increase in the short term, some exciting new areas of production will be introduced in the longer term.
Another factor influencing the sector is the search for better eating varieties, which has had a positive effect and resulted in taste improvement of strawberries during what used to be considered, “out of season”.
“The main pressures facing growers surround varietyal development - all companies are chasing the Holy Grail of berries; a variety that will give the consumer the ultimate eating experience and the grower the yield of class I fruit that will reward growers with a good return on their investment and hard work.
“Redeva has a number of exciting new varieties that we will be introducing this winter. Some of the new varieties will produce fruit overseas outside of the UK season. They offer the prospect of excellent quality combined with superb eating attributes. The improvement in the flavour of imported fruit has helped to build a loyal soft-fruit customer base throughout the year and has helped to build a good platform for the launch of the UK season, which now begins in April with excellent glasshouse production of Elsanta.”
Since the joint venture was established in early 2003, The Summerfruit Company has experienced an increase in market share as existing customers have upped their share. Maxwell says the marketing company has very clear goals for the near term. “We want people to buy more berries and we want a bigger percentage. We want to grow the cake and take a bigger slice. Our focus is on the domestic market as consumers demand more UK grown produce.
“Our programmes are reactive to weather conditions,” explains Maxwell. “Redeva is key to create something that is the next generation. It is a mature market when it comes to research - we need to find something better than Elsanta; something that tastes better and performs better. It’s not about yielding more strawberries per acre but about producing strawberries people want to buy. It is about flavour and performance.”
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