'Squashing' good milk
A plant 'milk' made from New Zealand-grown kabocha buttercup squash is now hitting supermarket shelves in Asia.
New Zealand Buttercup Squash Council chairman Don Turner went to Seoul to help launch the council's Korea Marketing Campaign, which attracted great media coverage.
The council is aiming to export $24 million of buttercup squash to Korea this year.
The New Zealand Embassy hosted a reception as part of the launch which was attended by our ambassador, Patrick Rata.
"It was terrific of Patrick to take the time to be part of our event, he added some official status to the occasion," Turner says.
Korea is an important market for New Zealand's buttercup squash exporters, and for New Zealand. It is our fifth largest export horticultural product and in the top 10 New Zealand products to Korea over the past three years.
A media event at key partner and largest Korean supermarket Emart was organised to launch the in-store demonstrations, which include the new New Zealand Buttercup Squash mascot 'Miss Buttercup' (pictured)
The big green smiling 'Miss Buttercup' is designed to appeal to the trendy, younger demographic.
"New Zealand growers have spent more than $1million on their Korea Campaign, all raised from fees paid ourselves," Turner says.
In three years New Zealand's buttercup squash share of the Korean market has more than doubled to around 25% (Japan is the other major market with nearly 75%).
