New markets are opening up for established New Zealand feijoa company Zeijoa, with a number of commercial growers now sharing the ownership.
“This will be our fourth year exporting under our premium Zeijoa brand, and it’s the first season where we’ve had shared grower ownership,” Zeijoa Director Todd Abrahams says.
“That comes with big advantages as we’re now able to increase our volumes and markets. So already we’ve got channels defined for Australia, and into Asian markets – mainly Singapore and Malaysia – we’ve got a channel to the USA and we’re also working on possibilities into The Middle East, particularly Dubai.”
He adds that the company is also supplying New Zealand, which has a strong market for the exotic fruit, and feedback has been “very positive” so far.
“The quality this season is looking fantastic too. The beauty of feijoa is that it’s a high yielding fruit and we can grow a lot of it here, so there’s definitely a need to develop markets.”
Originally from South America, the feijoa is an exotic fruit similar to a guava in taste and texture – and is sometimes actually called a “pineapple guava”.
“When it’s cut in half, visually it is similar to a guava, but the seeds are not as hard as a guava, and the jelly has different flavours as it ripens,” Mr Abrahams says.
“It’s quite tart when it’s just picked, but as it ripens it gets sweeter, and the flesh closest to the skin remains tart, so you have this great contrast.”
Some people also liken the taste to that of quince, and it is already a popular fruit in New Zealand. Zeijoa has built on this connection to the country, branding its feijoa as “New Zealand guava” to help introduce it to new consumers.
“We wanted to get that linkage for people, particularly in Asian markets, where they would think of a guava but also the fact that it comes from New Zealand – so it gives them an idea of the taste and the quality,” Mr Abrahams says.
He adds that the company already receives heaps of feedback online, via the Zeijoa Facebook page, with consumers in many countries saying they are “really happy with the quality of our fruit”.
“Last year the demand was so great in Asia that it outstripped what we could supply at the time. But we are well organised this season to accommodate this demand,” he says.
“Our channels into Australia and USA are well established, now we need to promote the premium Zeijoa brand in these markets to achieve excellent quality, taste experience and value for consumers.”
“That’s one of the reasons we’re so excited now to have growers owning shares in the company, because it means we can meet greater demands for exports and further develop the market.”
For New Zealand growers, the domestic market has reached a saturation point, so there is currently a lot of discussion about export, but Mr Abrahams says it’s a challenge for many growers to actually get into these markets.
“There are so many requirements to meet and factors to consider, and most growers here are in agreement that we’ve got to work together. That’s where we think Zeijoa comes in, because we want to expand our markets and involve more commercial growers to create these ongoing opportunities.”
He says one of the biggest challenges is packing the fruit for export, as they can vary in shape depending on the variety and time of harvest.
“There are early season, main season and late season varieties, and they can vary in regards to shape. Generally they’re an oval fruit – probably a bit more oval than a kiwifruit – but some can be round, some can be oblong, and that can create challenges with packing and grading.”
Zeijoa has been working hard to refine the packing, product specifications and export process, which requires airfreight, and has developed a number of solutions for the upcoming season.
“We’ve been flat out working on mitigating the cost so we can feed more money back to the grower and also get a competitive price point for offshore locations as it’s usually a very expensive fruit on the export markets.”
Mr Abrahams says he has six years experience exporting feijoas supported by many New Zealand feijoa growers. The formation of Zeijoa complements his role for the past decade as Managing Director of Pole to Pole, a business that markets and packs avocados for over 285 avocado growers in NZ.
“Our goal is to see what is a really small industry develop into a large scale feijoa growing industry – that’s the ultimate goal.”
