Barkers juice gets nod in Singapore

Press, 2 May 1984, Page 30

Barkers juice gets nod in Singapore

NZPA staff correspondent, David Porter Singapore

Barker’s Fruit Processors, of Geraldine, has made an immediate impact in its first attempt to sell its unique additive-free blackcurrant juice in the South-East Asian market, according to a company representative in Singapore. Mr Michael Mellon, the marketing adviser for the Geraldine-based company, said that because of participating in Food and Hotel Asia, a major regional food fair in Singapore last week, he had got an instantaneous reaction from the trade. “Distribution of our blackcurrant juice in supermarkets in Singapore starts this week,” he said. The development of special processing equipment by the firm’s founder, Mr Anthony Barker (who invented the Kent log fire) had enabled the company to bottle the first juice produced entirely from blackcurrants and other berries without the addition

of preservatives, water, or any other additives. The development two to three years ago had resulted in Barker’s last year becoming the largest processor in New Zealand of blackcurrants — a crop which had been feeling the effect of a shortage of export markets. “South-East Asia represents a very large market for blackcurrant juice,” Mr Mellon said.

In the past, consumers had been satisfied with a product which had contained additives.

But during the three-day fair, which ended last Friday, trade buyers had been quickly persuaded of the value of blackcurrant juice and other similar lines made by the company, including loganberry juice, berry crush for use in catering, and blackcurrant liquurs and other berry wines. There was a 60,000 case (each case contains one dozen bottles) market in Singapore and a 160,000 case market in Hong Kong, Mr Mellon said. Mr Mellon was to go to Hong Kong this week to seek further distribution outlets. “We’ll be quite happy with a two to three per cent share of those markets at this stage.” The company regarded its approach to the South-East Asian market as having been most successful, he said.