N.Z. seeks big increase in U.S. kiwifruit sales

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 30

N.Z. seeks big increase in U.S. kiwifruit sales

By

JOHN HUTCHISON

San Francisco With a commitment which will almost double last year’s promotion effort, the New Zealand Kiwifruit Authority is readying its biggest push into the North American market

The annual promotion budget has been increased from $U5940,000 to SUSI.7S million.

The sales target is four million trays for the United States and Canada. Sales last year were a record 2.8 million trays. The new goal, at estimated prices, would represent a return to the industry of between SUS2S and SUS3O million, said Ms Hillary Brick, the authority’s promotion manager for North America.

The expanding promotion is accompanied by new market research, some of it in co-operation with the California Kiwifruit Commission. Such co-operation has been growing for about three

years, after rather frosty relations between the two groups. They trade in "mirror” seasons which have small, but occasionally competitive overlap. The first consumer advertising for the 1986 New Zealand crop will be conducted jointly with the New Zealand Lamb Company and will put nearly 14 million coupons in newspapers in eight main market areas across the continent.

The coupon will offer price incentives to consumers who present them for kiwi and lamb purchases at checkout counters.

Later this year another promotion will feature the New Zealand marathon runner, Rod Dixon, and a sweepstakes in which kiwifruit customers may win Air New Zealand holiday travel. Surveys already made indicate the importance of persuading more Americans to taste kiwifruit for the first time, Ms Brick

says. .. The message “most likely to turn them on is simply that it tastes good.”

Pursuing repeat sales can educate them about the healthful values of the fruit, she says, noting that last year only 12 per cent of American households tried the product In the world’s largest consumer nation, where the market for fruit (almost 40kg a head) is steadily advancing, the potential is very high, says Ms Brick.

Parallel with the effort to win more consumers is a California-New Zealand effort to reach the food service industry, broadly defined as that which feeds people away from home.

It is the only growing section of the United States market in food, but it is booming, Ms Brick says and is now at SUS 74 billion annually. Its share of consumer spending has risen from 34 per cent in

1974 to 42 per cent in 1984.

To determine how best to penetrate and supply this market, the commission and the authority are sharing equally in the cost of a survey. Mr Mark Houston, president of the commission, said the total would be SUS4O,OOO. He and Ms Brick both report good communication between the two organisations and agree that advances made in sales and promotion are generally beneficial to each.

“What’s good for the California kiwifruit market is good for us,” says Ms Brick.

A New Zealander by birth and experienced in American trade, she assumed her present job less than a year ago. Once in the New Zealand foreign service, she was the marketing officer for a large California electronics firm and then for the New Zealand Trade Commission.