The exotics sector is faring slightly better than expected at the moment, leaving most traders and suppliers cautiously optimistic that the UK public has not lost its taste for all things tropical. One analyst comments: “Consumers still like exotic produce, they are still looking for new products and experiences, and they are not all going to want or even expect all their produce to come from within a 30-mile radius of where they live.”
Demand for exotics has picked up slightly in the last quarter. Previous shortages of fruits have alleviated, and produce is now fetching more money. Easter sales exceeded expectations in some instances, although post-Easter trade has been slower. Lines such as paw paw and mango that were hard to come by in the previous three months have come back into decent supply, according to insiders. However, prices are high. “Mangoes that would usually be selling at £3-4 are at £6-7, passionfruit usually at £7 is selling for £8 and pineapples that are usually priced at £6-8 are also selling for higher. But our customers are still buying, despite the higher prices,” says one.
Some traders attribute the increase in sales to an easing in doom and gloom news reports over the last couple of weeks. “This has given a feel-good factor back to the market - even though prices are dear, the fruits are still selling,” says one.
But the category is not out of the woods just yet. There has been a drop-off in trade of some lines, with fringe products faring less than well than mainstream exotic products. “The periphery lines are less exciting, but the cores are holding up well,” says one insider. “Over the course of the year, we sell about 200 products and I can say there are probably about 40 that are not very exciting at the moment and which are making us question their financial viability.”
Food price inflation figures are also masking any potential drop in volumes, and sales on paper, at least, look steady due to prices.
Customers are still purchasing lesser volumes of exotics on a daily basis, according to insiders, but rather than making a visit just once a week they are now buying more regularly. “Whereas last quarter a customer might have bought one box of plantains a week, now they will come one day and buy a box, but then come two other days a week as well. The volumes have picked up and so has the spending.”
Sourcing products of good quality has always been a challenge on certain lines and remains so - as one trader comments, “a good supplier is always worth their weight in gold”.
However, there have been weather-related issues across regions such as Africa, South America and the Caribbean that have affected availability. The general consensus is that product supply is tight on the exotics front relative to previous years, but this is not a phenomenon unique to the category, with all fruit and veg suffering a similar fate.
Pomegranates from India, for example, were short this season, although the fruit fared well in the UK in terms of sales. Indian shipper Kay Bee Exports had a successful pomegranate campaign and sent the highest volume of pomegranates from India to Europe this year. The firm’s Kaushal Khakhar tells FPJ: “We exported in excess of 1,000 tonnes from December 2008 to March 2009. This is normal growth compared to last year.”
However, supplies of Indian pomegranates have been very short overall. Volumes in December and January were encouraging but dipped in February and March. Growing conditions were not as optimal as in previous years, which resulted in tight supplies.
Khakhar adds: “Demand for pomegranates in the UK has been on a par with last year, but we haven’t seen any significant growth this year. Moreover, we have had to strive much harder to make a profit this year as the sterling has been very weak.”
Insiders predict that the category will continue to get better as the weather hopefully improves over the summer. Khakhar is confident about future growth of lines such as Indian pomegranates in the UK. “We are very optimistic about the future prospects for pomegranates and are confident that we will be able to see good growth in the coming years,” he says.
On the promotional front, exotics have also fared well, with many still benefiting from their ‘superfood’ attributes.
Foods from Spain’s campaign to develop sales of Spanish persimmon takes place during the October to December window and ran for its fourth year in 2008. Sales of persimmon rose by 18 per cent in the 2008 season, according to TNS data. Specifically in Tesco stores, sales rose by 155 per cent during the season (mid-October to mid-December) compared with the previous season.
Trial and education were central to the campaign, with activities including sampling with information and recipe booklets, as well as shelf tickets and radio in the main retailers. Advertising and advertorials appeared in the consumer press during the season, and consumer and trade public relations also took place.
The campaign has been successful in growing the UK market for Spanish persimmon during its season, by raising awareness both at the point of sale and in the media. It has also achieved new listings for this emerging fruit, as new retailers have been encouraged to trial the product with promotional support.
When the persimmon campaign began in 2006, Morrisons was the only retailer listing this emerging fruit. However, the campaign has stimulated listings in Tesco in 2007, and during the 2008 season, in Sainsbury’s. Three of the big four retailers now stock it.
The 2009 campaign to support the Spanish persimmon will start in October and will feature a new cross-section of media and retailer-focused activity.
There is plenty of reason for the exotics sector to take heart, as supplies pick up and consumer interest in the category does not appear to be waning too much. “It is not easy but we are cautiously optimistic,” adds one trader. “We remain committed to the concept that value is not just price.”
MANGO RESEARCH AT CRANFIELD
Despite the current economic climate, foreign governments are still investing in UK post-harvest research, writes Dr Leon A Terry, head of the Plant Science Laboratory at Cranfield University, pictured centre with his laboratory members. For example, sponsors are funding a variety of projects within Cranfield’s Plant Science Laboratory, which is one of the largest post-harvest research groups within the EU.
Much of this research is centred on describing the temporal changes in post-harvest physiology and biochemistry of endemic and unusual fruit cultivars. Many foreign governments aim to gain greater knowledge and understanding about their fresh products and find out whether they may be suitable for export. The favoured avenue to conduct this kind of research is by funding one of their graduate compatriots to study for a PhD or enrol as a visiting student, thereby ensuring that candidates not only receive a world-class education, but also take the skills learnt in the UK back to their homeland. Research supported by learning and teaching should be at the heart of post-harvest science and knowledge transfer. Here are a few examples of Cranfield-based research specific to mangoes.
Total mango production in Sri Lanka is around 96,500 tonnes a year. Mangoes are grown on 26,000 hectares of land and derived from three different agro-ecological regions; dry zone, wet zone and intermediate zone. There is no published information on the genotypic variation of major biochemical constituents in mango fruit endemic to Sri Lanka. Accordingly, the temporal change in taste and health-related target analytes were determined in both pre-climacteric and post-climacteric Sri Lankan mango cultivars, namely Willard, Karutha Colomban, Vellai Colomban, Ampalavi and Malgova. Work is being conducted through a Cranfield PhD studentship (T Thanaraj), sponsored by the World Bank-aided IRQUE project of Faculty of Agriculture, Eastern University, Sri Lanka, and has demonstrated that mangoes harvested in Sri Lanka have unique colour, flavour, taste and aroma properties - cf Thanaraj, Terry and Bessant, 2009, Chemometric analysis of chemical compounds in preclimacteric Sri Lankan mangoes (Mangifera indica L) Food Chemistry 112, 786-794.
Allied to this work, research has also been conducted by a visiting student
(I Ahmad) under the International Research Support Initiative Program (IRSIP) funded by Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission. Research again assessed the post-harvest physiological and biochemical changes of endemic mango cultivars (Anwar Ratole, Chaunsa and Faiz Kareem) with export potential.
Ongoing research with the University of Pretoria in South Africa under the Key International Science Capacity Development Programme, funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa, aims to improve the post-harvest mango horticulture management chain for emerging farmers. The expected outcome is to provide good-quality fruit for domestic and export markets within the African continent and to help empower South African emerging farmers with the latest knowledge and techniques to retain fruit quality, alleviate poverty, provide good-quality mango fruit to local markets, promote export within the African continent, and gain access to quality-conscious niche markets in the EU.
In addition, a workshop for emerging farmers will be held in Pretoria this July as a result of a bilateral agreement between the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and the government of South Africa, making funding available to establish a networking scheme that aims to initiate and develop enduring partnerships between UK and South African scientists. Under the agreement, both sides agreed upon the need to bring together their scientists in any field of science and technology. This scheme is administered by the Royal Society on behalf of DIUS and by the NRF on behalf of the South Africa department of science and technology.
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