Zespri makes Psa-resistant Gold3 kiwifruit central to its future

Zespri International, the kiwifruit marketer and exporter, has put the new Gold3 variety at the centre of its five-year plan and intends to make a major marketing push to cement it as a premium product selling for 20-40% more than the green or Hayward kiwifruit.

The Gold3 fruit is more resistant to the Pseudomonas syringae pv actinadiae bacteria, better known as Psa, and was commercialised by Zespri in 2010. It is marketed internationally under the name of SunGold.

Gold volumes are expected to rise to more than 60 million trays by 2020 from 32 million trays in 2015, with the bulk of the increase being Gold3, according to Zespri's five-year outlook published today. Zespri said its strategy will focus on finding the premium price point in each market, and then driving sales using marketing rather than price reductions. Demand for gold kiwifruit from non-New Zealand supply is expected to increase by more than 400%  to 17.4 million trays in 2020/21 from 3.9 million trays in 2015/16.

However, growers are being warned that Gold3 is still a new variety and the company is still learning about early supply, storage and the ideal conditioning regimes. At the moment there are also no other high-quality gold competing kiwifruits produced by rivals but Zespri warns that could change, making product differentiation more difficult.

In the organic market, Zespri is again planning to focus more on the Gold3 kiwifruit. It said organic Gold3 will increase to 2.3 million trays in 2020/21, up from 0.5 million trays in 2015/16. Production of organic green is expected to reduce to 3.5 million trays from 3.9 million trays over the same period.

Zespri said the future of its sweet green or green 14 Kiwifruit is unclear and there will be a thorough review of the product at the end of the 2016/17 season.

Retailers are reluctant to provide space for a second green kiwifruit on the shelves and customers often can't tell the difference between it and the Hayward kiwifruit. However, Zespri plans to market the product on TV and internet home shopping in China to try to build a market there, it said.

Looking globally, Zespri said the industry faces a number of challenges in the future. It warns kiwifruit production costs in New Zealand are twice as much as in Chile, while China is on track to become an exporter of kiwifruit and a competitor to all kiwifruit growing nations.

Zespri is looking to source supply from within China and developing supply partnerships to underpin a long-term business, it said.

(BusinessDesk)