Blog

Shona and I came back from a whirlwind look around the Shanghai and Tokyo markets at the beginning of the month. It was very interesting and certainly they were two markets of contrast, both openly competing with each other to provide the NZ grower with the highest OGR.

Shanghai’s potential for e commerce (internet fruit sales) was spectacular, the infra structure of the city was impressive along with the rapid development they are achieving with sales. Compare this with Tokyo’s more mature market that had very little e commerce but still a real good understanding of their consumers needs, being able to fine tune their market strategies using health, vitality messages to harness sales.

We saw the POWER of the Zespri Brand, alongside the poorer quality of Chilean fruit in the markets. We also saw the huge competition from other fruit in the market – delicious cherries, large juicy peaches, spectacular mangoes, attractive dragonfruit, the list goes on, all sitting on the same shelf as our kiwifruit competing for the consumers $. So evident we must continue to produce the best tasting, safest and attractive fruit to progress with sales as our volumes continue to increase.

It was great to see our client’s fruit in both the markets, all well labelled and excellent fruit quality! A small detour before the tour to X’ian (north of Shanghai) to look at a juicing factory where we had sent some Class 3 fruit, and have a glimpse of a kiwifruit orchard, all enlightened us on the scale of things in China.

Nice to be home, although a lot cooler, the pace of traffic and number of people is luxurious!