Premium fruit for the future
Given that Hawke’s Bay is a major fruit growing hub in New Zealand it’s no surprise that there are many ancillary services dedicated to supporting and enhancing our role as world leaders in the premium fruit market.
One such enterprise is Prevar which was established in 2004 to globally commercialise new apple and pear cultivars bred in New Zealand by Plant and Food Research (PFR). Prevar has three shareholders – NZ Apples and Pears (55 per cent), PFR (29 per cent) and Apple and Pear Australia (16 per cent).
Recently Tony Martin returned back to the Bay, with his wife Suzy and their three children, to succeed Brett Ennis as CEO. Martin joined Prevar after eight years working overseas with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. He spent time in the Middle East and Vietnam as a trade commissioner, consul general and regional director. Earlier in his career he worked in sales and marketing for food and beverage companies.
Tony, and his colleagues, are working with industry to anticipate what new apple and pear cultivars will be needed up to 20 years ahead. To date, Prevar has commercialised 10 apple varieties including Rockit, Smitten, Sweetie, Lemonade, Dazzle and Cherish and the pear variety PiqaBoo.
“All these varieties have various licensing agreements. Years ago Phil Alison saw the potential of Rockit as a category creator in the global marketplace. He worked with Prevar to establish a license agreement to commercialise and globalise Rockit. Now it has
become its own stand-alone company with a big marketing and distribution engine behind it.”
“We can grow great produce here but we also want to maintain some level of ownership and benefit from breeding those at the premium end of the market,” Tony says.
“Prevar may hold the global license for a variety or they may issue a licence by territory such as China or Australia. There are many ways a license can be structured.”
“For every tree planted of a particular variety Prevar will take a royalty payment. There’s usually a production royalty, and in some cases there’s an access fee and these main revenue streams fund Prevar.”
“When it comes to the New Zealand industry we have a very small domestic market so we have to export to sustain the industry and we need to be able to produce at some level of scale.
These premium varieties support the growth of the New Zealand industry. It’s likely that up to 50% of apples exported from New Zealand would be premium varieties in the years ahead,” he says.
“Plant and Food Research are world leaders in these breeding programmes and Prevar has exclusive access to their scientists so that sets us apart. The scientists spend years breeding new varieties based on flavour profiles and what consumers want. They also spend a lot of time on increasing productivity and improving disease resistance and sustainable growing practices . Both the consumer end and the technical end need to be resolved in order to get a price premium in the market,” he says.
“New Zealand also can produce apples at lower cost and higher volume than other markets. In Hawke’s Bay growing conditions such as the quality of the soil and good natural sunlight make it perfect for growing and then we have the scientists working to improve tree productivity.”
“We can’t necessarily multiply exports by 10 or a 100 times because we’d do all sorts of
irreparable damage to the environment. One way forward is to also export our intellectual property. There is so much potential if we get the balance right.”
“New Zealand is already a leader in exporting premium apples but it’s no time for complacency. We have to work hard to maintain our world leading position with quality production and science led innovation.”
“The key message is that for New Zealand to maintain a competitive advantage we have to achieve a balance between changing consumer need and maintaining the best sustainable production practices to produce the best quality fruit,” Tony says.