Education and promotion in Asian markets is the key to driving avocado sales as growers face the challenge of marketing a record crop, says exporter Avoco.
The national crop estimate for the 2014/15 season is more than 7 million trays, with an expectation of a record 4.5 million plus trays being exported. New Zealand's previous high was a 6.2 million trays total crop in 2011/12. Last season, 3.1 million trays of avocados were exported.
Avoco director John Carroll said avocados were still a new food to many Asian consumers. Exporters, faced with the challenge of selling record quantities of fruit, were taking every opportunity to educate people on their versatility and health benefits and developing new consumer interest across Asia is critical to the marketing strategy.
Harvesting for this season got under way in late August and, as at October 10, more than 25 per cent of Avoco growers' crops have been picked and 918,000 export trays have been shipped. The bulk of Avoco's fruit is sent to Australia, a market that this year is also being well supplied by high volumes coming out of West Australian orchards. To avoid oversupplying the market and devaluing the price of avocados, about 37 per cent of Avoco's exports are being sent to developing Asian markets and the US.
Mr Carroll said poor weather had hampered harvesting at the start of the season, but growers and packers were now consistently hitting their weekly targets for export.