Big, tasty avocados top sellers

By LIBBY MIDDLEBROOK

Some New Zealand-grown avocados enjoy the sort of marketing imperative in the United States many would contest - size matters.

Tauranga-based Team Horticulture has been exporting avocados to the US for about three years, promoting flavour and size as key points of difference from avocados grown elsewhere.

And, from a customer perspective, there does not seem to be any dispute over Team Horticulture's assertions.

Since 1994, the company has increased exports from 40,000 trays to 380,000, with more than 50 per cent exported to the US market. This year, Team Horticulture expects to increase its export volume by more than 50 per cent, as a result of increased demand for the pear-shaped fruit in the US and Australia.

"It's been very good over the last decade, growers have done very well," says managing director Alistair Young.

"The first year that we launched overseas, we had 600 per cent increase in consumption and we've had steady growth there ever since."

The country's largest avocado exporter, Team Horticulture was set up in 1993 as a specialised direct seller of avocados. Today, 235 growers supply the exporter, which paid out an average of $19 a tray to growers last year. EAch tray holds around 25 avocados.

With New Zealand avocados growing in popularity overseas, Mr Young puts the company's success down to its marketing programme, which allows it to sell direct to retailers and distributors, rather than trading through wholesalers.

"Initially, we didn't see a lot of growth going on because produce was being sold into a wholesale environment," he said. "We believed that we had to take charge of our own products all the way through to the customer, to ensure that the marketing and creative growth kept up with our orchard production."

Now Team Horticulture, which operates under the Team Avocado brand, sells its produce through the Woolworths supermarket chain both in New Zealand and Australia. In the US, the company has a three-year-old contract with Calavo, the largest distributor in the country.

"That was a real asset for us, working under the Calavo brand, because we didn't have to invest in making our brand recognisable," Mr Young said.

Soon the company plans to increase exports to Asia, with a particular focus on the Japanese market.

Meanwhile, New Zealand avocado exports are expected to grow from 1.2 million trays to more than 4 million during the next five years. More competition will emerge from California and Chile, where avocado production is also on the rise.

To ensure that export returns remain high, Mr Young said the company would align itself with retailers who aimed to increase their market share through aggressive marketing campaigns.

"We're trying to keep ahead with our marketing, to make sure we select the customers who are aggressive and capable of growing their volumes of sales to keep up with our volumes of supply."

New Zealand avocado growers would also have to reinvest in harvesting equipment to keep up with increased production, as there was an extreme shortage in the market.

"The whole New Zealand avocado industry is maturing and we need to ensure that the industry is properly poised to take advantage of it and manage the volumes that are coming," he said.

"A fast-maturing industry is a volatile place to be. We're moving rapidly to ensure what happened to apples doesn't happen to us."

The apple industry has been crippled in recent years by increased production and more competition in the export market.