Pipfruit New Zealand's annual conference has been declared a resounding success.
CEO Allan Pollard said the vision to become a billion-dollar industry by 2022 was clearly achievable "with some very clear strategies on how to get there".
Opening speaker, Plant and Food chief operating officer Bruce Campbell welcomed members to the 2022 conference held in Hawkes' Bay, congratulating them on achieving their billion-dollar goal and explained the strategy for success.
The next three speakers were also export focused before the conference broke for Pipfruit New Zealand's annual general meeting.
Mr Pollard said day one of the conference "couldn't have been better" and day two yesterday offered "a huge amount of information to digest" with all-day "quickfire seminars".
"It reflects the huge amount of research that is being done by the industry."
Many seminars yesterday were on ways to ensure clean, disease-free apples.
"Everything at the end of the day comes down to market access," WHe said while science and innovation would help the industry reach or exceed its billion dollar goal, so would an increase in scale.
"A lot of it is going to come from new plantings."