Zespri lays out ambitious global marketing plans
Kiwifruit giant Zespri wants to keep growing its China market as it pushes to make its product the top choice among consumers for imported fruit.
China was already Zespri’s largest single market, where it sold $446 million worth of kiwifruit last season, and since early 2014, the business had grown 190 per cent in volume, the company’s China and Hong Kong country manager Louis Pan said.
‘‘Over the years we have been doing fantastically and have achieved greatly,’’ he told growers and Bay of Plenty business leaders at an event hosted by Zespri and Export New Zealand.
Pan said the result was because of the trust Zespri’s New Zealand management had put in its China team.
‘‘China has become the largest single market for Zespri since 2016 and we are the most profitable with the highest orchard gate return for the Sungold market, so it’s not only delivered the volume, it’s delivered the value as well.’’
Zespri had also superseded global companies such as Colgate, Dole and Hershey’s in the China marketplace.
But its China business had to grow if it was to be sustainable over the long term and Zespri aimed to double the current volume of fruit going into China while maintaining the high returns.
‘‘We want to be top of the imported fruit bowl.’’
China’s high per capita fruit consumption of around 100kg per person per year provided Zespri with an ideal opportunity to reach that goal, he said.
Despite the high level of growth to date, Zespri had to keep looking for new opportunities and working alongside locals and using local staff was critical. Staff numbers have gone from 10 to 50 people in the past three years and over 90 per cent of these employees were local Chinese.
The business model is split into two tiers.tier one covers major city centres while the second tier covers the outlying regions and had a different business profile. More than 60 per cent of fruit goes to wholesale markets.