David Smith, president of pan-industry organisation United Fresh, told Rural News his organisation will play its part to help coordinate the industry as it moves forward. Started in 1991, United Fresh has 83 members from growers to service providers such as transport operators and crate suppliers to wholesalers and retailers.
Growing to $10 billion a year is big target, Smith admits. “But New Zealand is in a unique position: it produces high class fruit and product. Its focus has been on Europe and to a lesser degree America but now it is is very much towards the new developing markets in Asia – places like Indonesia, Philippines, etc. And of course the big growth markets of China and India.”
Of the $3.5 billion now, $1 billion comes from kiwifruit, the apple industry is $450m and other bigger players include avocado, and the big vegetables items such as onions and squash to Japan. About $850m is in the wholesale value for domestic fruit and vegetables.
Kiwifruit are on track to grow from a $1 billion to $3 billion industry especially with the new Gold variety, and the apple industry has big potential, says Smith. It has much invested in intellectual property rights, with new varieties Jazz and Envy apples. Avocadoes are also growing. Those will be key players in hitting the $10 billion mark by 2020.
China and India also hold big potential. India currently imposes a 50% duty on a box of apples, but if a free trade agreement is negotiated, exports should grow significantly.
As president of United Fresh for five years, Smith’s role is bringing all those groups together. The most important function in helping growth is “to get coordination of all the players, get them into a room together and get their competitor hats outside that room so they cooperate and talk about industry good”. They look at what the industry can do to promote fruit and produce, boost domestic consumption and grow export markets.
United Fresh is seeing a consolidation of the New Zealand industry as growing crops becomes more complicated, so farmers become larger in scale.
“They are required nowadays to meet high standards of health and safety, traceability in their products – everything United Fresh is involved in right down to the little label that goes on the fruit that identifies it from a block in Hawkes Bay into a supermarket in Europe or the UK. So we have a function right through that process. So more consolidations, farms becoming bigger, more efficiency, more traceability and more health and safety standards, all put us in a good position for the future.”
Zespri is obviously a collaborative effort, and while people may see about 50-60 apple exporters in the marketplace, only about six are exporting 80-85% of the crop. With avocadoes there are three-four companies exporting 80% of the crop. There will be more consolidation of packhouses, more growers coming into cooperatives and more central packhouses and central coolstores. These trends are occurring on both sides of the Tasman.
The industry has been looking at seasonal supply patterns, and there’s much emphasis on reducing supply chain costs. “Today we would say there’s no excuse for the average household not to have fresh fruit and produce in their home and in an economic way. There’s so many different ways they can purchase from our members and that’s everything from the large scale supermarket to the smaller retailers right through to the street market to the farmers’ market and we have members who are online sellers.”
“There’s a whole raft of different services now available to the consumer in an economic way every day.”
