heading for a bumper avocado crop this season, according to John Carroll, director of the country's biggest avocado marketing group, Avanza. The export crop volume should reach 5 million trays, around 30% more than any previous record harvests."This is due mostly to great growing conditions, especially around fruit set time when there was a nice period of settled weather," explains Carroll. There have also been some new plantings adding to the increased volume.
New Zealand's biggest export market is traditionally Australia, but Carroll said that there has been a big push towards Asia in recent years, "We have continued to develop relationships there in the last few years but this is the first year that we have significant volumes to really push into these markets. Japan is a relatively established market for us and their knowledge of avocados there is greater than most other Asian markets. South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore are the key markets which we have been active in and are looking to do much more with. We don't currently have psytosanitary access to China but that market will become a focus in time."
In general terms, many of the consumers in these markets in Asia are not familiar with the avocado, so the demand has to be developed. Finding ways of introducing our product into their diets and cuisines is the challenge we face, but we believe there is a recognition of the product’s benefits and the commercial opportunity for businesses to capitalise on, as witnessed on so many other parts of the World. Of course, each country in the region has very different tastes and approaches to food and this needs to be recognised.
Avanza, a group formed by the three biggest exporters in New Zealand (Southern Produce, Premor Produce and Just Avocados), have done a degree of different promotional work over the last few years to develop these markets; this year the promotion will be ramped up to a higher level. "We are also part of a plan to create a 12 month supply to the region together with our North American partner, Mission Produce, a California based company. The importance of working together to provide a 12 month supply is essential to growing this category.
