With early season South African apples now on UK shelves, growers in the southern hemisphere country are forecasting their exports will climb by 4.4 per cent on last season.
Hortgro Services, the organisation that represents South Africa’s fruit industry, expects to ship more than 40 million carton equivalents of apples and pears globally this season - some 26.5m of apples and 13.6m of pears. Apple exports are estimated to be up 4.4 per cent on the 2011 season, which saw 25,519,442 carton equivalents exported.
Jacques Du Preez, product manger for top fruit and stonefruit at Hortgro Services said: “Growers are predicting year-to-date apple exports to be up by six per cent compared to the previous season, which is a great start to 2012. The quality and quantity of this year’s top fruit will be very good.”
This year will be the third successive year that the season in the UK will be supported by the “Beautiful Country, Beautiful Fruit” run by South Africa’s growers and for the first time, the initiative will also be rolled out to Germany.
Activity during the season will highlight South African apples and pears to British shoppers from April through to September. This will include a range of activities in supermarkets, including tasting sessions, with information and recipes given away in addition to fruit samples, on-pack competitions and offers, as well as advertising at the point-of-sale and on retailers’ websites. The German promotion will work closely with the main retailers and include in-store promotions, supermarket tastings, leaflets and magazine promotions.
Du Preez added: “The 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. After two successful years of promotion in the UK, we’re hoping to see similar results in Germany. Coordinating both campaigns gives us a consistent message of quality and season of South African fruit as well as bringing economies of scale to the process.”
