Kiwifruit strategy for Aust. market

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 13

Kiwifruit strategy for Aust. market

NZPA Staff correspondent Sydney New Zealand plans to export 500,000 trays of kiwifruit valued about ?5 million to Australia from its new season’s crop, according to marketing officials. The New Zealand Kiwifruit Authority set the target at a strategy meeting in Sydney on April 11. At the same time it sized up the competition from the Australian crop which is expected to increase by 100,000 trays in the new season. An authority member, Mr Bruce Honeybone, said that

the competition from the local product was on the Australian domestic market, where the fruit matured earlier than in New Zealand and grew in different parts of the country for almost as long. The Australians could do little to compete with New Zealand on the international market given the fledgling state of their industry, he said. Adding to Australian export problems is a ban on their fruit in Japan and the United States because of fears about fruit fly. “New Zealand will be shipping half a million trays of premium-quality fruit into Australia this year while the Australians expect their crop to be about 250,000 trays of all grades,” he said. “They will be competition locally, but it will only serve to widen the market and that means more sales in future.” New Zealand growers were forecasting exports of 12.5 million trays valued about $ll5 million. That would grow to about 18 million trays in 1085,»he said. The Sydney meeting of most of the 28 Australian importers of the New Zealand fruit was the first under the new marketing strategy devised by the authority which calls for centralised meetings in each of the main markets. Mr Honeybone said that a recent meeting in Europe was the biggest conference held there for any single product. Seventy European importers as well as mar-

keters and promotions agents had discussed strategy. Germany ranks with Japan as New Zealand’s biggest market. Each take 38 per cent of the total kiwifruit crop, while the United States is third and Australia sixth. The authority’s secretary, Mr Anthony Holman, said that New Zealand growers could handle competition from anywhere in the world, and the more producers, the greater the market developed for the fruit. “The greatest threat to New Zealand is from poorouality fruit from other producers which will damage the market,” he said. “New Zealand’s big advantage is that it is known throughout the world as exporting only the best. We are the only growing country with compulsory standards. “We are the biggest in the world and with our planning and organisation, we should stay ahead.”