The world's avocado production is increasing every year but according to those within the industry demand is still far higher than supply. The Australians are renowned for their love of the avocado, this is music to the ears of both Australian and New Zealand producers.
Australia continues to be the largest market for both the New Zealand industry and grower and marketer Just Avocados, typically taking between 75% to 85% of national crop each season.
The New Zealand industry delivered a record crop of just over 4.7 million export trays, well up on the previous seasons 2.5 million and close to 300,000 export trays more than the previous record harvest achieved in the 2014 season. "The volume handled by Just Avocados was also significantly over 75% greater than the prior season with a volume of around 700,000 trays exported to customers in eight different markets," according to Steve Trickett, General Manager Sales & Marketing at the company.
Just Avocados is investing in additional resources and infrastructure designed to see a progressive increase in volume over 5 years, generated from its current 15% share of industry crop up to 20%+. The acquisition and leasing of further avocado orchards combined with the expected lift in grower productivity through the additional technical transfer advice provided to supplying growers will underpin the projected growth.
"To ensure we do not become over-dependent on the Australian market, we continue to pursue new market development initiatives in a number of Asian markets, with particular focus on Japan, Korea and Thailand as well as more recent penetration into emerging markets such as Taiwan. Once access is gained into mainland China, Just Avocados will be on the front foot there exploring new niche market opportunities such as those identified in the E-Commerce space."
"In new and emerging markets particularly in North and South East Asia, there is an ongoing need to invest in consumer education around the nutritional benefits avocados offer as well as how to handle the fruit and the wide variety of ways to incorporate it into the menu," explains Steve. "Market-specific recipe development to meet different ethnic tastes and cooking styles will play a big part in that education."
"The South Korean market has demonstrated the fastest growth in recent years," according to Steve. "It gained No.2 spot after Japan in the markets served by New Zealand outside of Australia. Korean consumers are very health conscious and a significant percent of the population have good disposable incomes so are willing and able to pay the premium commanded for New Zealand origin fruit. From a supplier perspective this market is also a priority as it prefers the medium to larger sized fruit that New Zealand typically grows more of compared to other key Southern Hemisphere competitors such as Mexico."
Just Avocados is one of 12 New Zealand exporters and so a key point of difference for both grower suppliers and international customers alike is the fact they are an "avo-centric" business which is also fully integrated as a grower-packer-exporter-marketer service company able to seamlessly deliver product to the end-customer and more quickly respond to changing market dynamics.
"Just Avocados has always been a significant contributor to the drive for developing new markets and pioneering new technologies involved in serving these markets. Being internationally connected with leading players in the global fruit trade enables us to share and trial marketing ideas that work elsewhere."
