Retail promotions for Pink Lady apples are taking place in Shanghai this month, with in-store activities running across 10 outlets run by RT Mart and Metro Cash & Carry.
The foray into China’s commercial capital marks a new chapter in the marketing of the branded apple, which is finally branching into Asia.
The popularity of Pink Lady originally centred on the UK market, although its consumer following has since fanned out across Europe, and the apple is also gaining support in the US.
Asia, meanwhile, has largely been overlooked as a market, partly because Pink Lady was traditionally considered too target for consumer palates in the region.
But Pink Lady’s trademark owner Apple and Pear Australia Limited (APAL) conducted some taste-testings of the apple in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou last year that revealed strong consumer interest.
“Consumers did notice that Pink Lady apples were more acidic than Fuji and Royal Gala, but the feedback was all about the taste and texture,” said Garry Langford of Coregeo Australia, APAL’s intellectual property (IP) division. “The overwhelming message was the positive perception of the Pink Lady flavour.”
Shanghai at the heart
Following on from those taste-testings. APAL elected to conduct fully-fledged sales trials this year with a strategic focus on one city, namely Shanghai.
“We began promoting Pink Lady apples in retail outlets between April and June with fruit from France,” said Langford. “Now, we’re resuming the programme with imports from New Zealand and Chile.”
APAL is working with two major retail chains in Shanghai, Metro Cash & Carry and RT Mart. “Our promotions are running across 10 stores split between the two groups and they’ll take place everyday for a period of more than a month,” he explained. “In each store, we have a supervisor and two marketing girls offering samples and giveaways. As it’s currently summer in Shanghai they’re offering fans with the Pink Lady apple brand on.”
The Pink Lady strategy is focusing on imported fruit to begin with, and all those imports must come through official and formally licensed channels. “We had to work out which suppliers had direct access to China, and there aren’t that many,” said Langford. “Basically, we’ve got France, New Zealand and Chile at the moment.”
APAL has appointed licensed Pink Lady importers in Shanghai – namely San Clemente China and Zespri’s distributor Shanghai Neuhof Trade Co.
The group has set a three-year target to market 3,000 tonnes of Pink Lady apples in Shanghai, but Langford suggests it could easily exceed that number by 2014. “This is a new market that will expand rapidly,” he told Fruitnet.com. “The market is quality-focused and our processes revolve around quality, consistency and branding, so there’s a good fit with consumer demand.”
Once a bridgehead is established in Shanghai, there are plans to expand Pink Lady apples into other major Chinese cities, notably Guangzhou and Beijing. “Our 10-year plan is to market 20,000 tonnes into China and we think we’ll get there faster than we planned,” said Langford.
Building domestic supplies
While APAL is building the Pink Lady business in China on imported fruit to begin with, the group also plans to include Chinese-grown product in its supermarket programmes in the future, possibly as early as next year.
“We've already made a good assessment of the production potential `for Cripps Pink` in China and there are a few challenges growing it there, but the main challenge is getting growers to understand selling directly to supermarkets and conducting branded promotions,” Langford said.
Capturing South East Asia
In addition to launching Pink Lady apples in China, APAL has been getting a handle on the emerging South East Asian market. Significant volumes of unbranded Cripps Pink apples have begun to enter certain markets in the region over recent years, notably Malaysia. While this confirmed the growing interest in the variety, it also underlined the need to take a proactive approach for Pink Lady apples.
“There’s been a lot of CP5, which is Cripps Pink of Pink Lady quality, coming from South Africa into the region to avoid the trademark fees,” said Langford. “We wanted to capture that production before we lost the market to CP5.”
APAL has appointed a master licensee to oversee its business in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, namely Western Australia-based company Craig Mostyn & Co, where Peter Richardson is managing the programme.
“Peter’s been to South Africa and New Zealand several times and talked to exporters about who their importers and distributors are,” said Langford. “We have appointed three licensed Pink Lady importers in Malaysia, two in Singapore and one in Brunei. We’ve had great success in bringing previous exporters of Cripps Pink on board under the Pink Lady banner. The CP5 business has virtually dried up.”
Plans are now afoot to follow up on the Southern Hemisphere supplies with fruit from France, Italy and the US to build the year-round Pink Lady programme in South East Asia. “One thing that’s really impressed me is the enthusiasm of importers to get behind this,” said Richardson. “I don’t see why we can’t double the volumes out of the Southern Hemisphere alone to 200,000 cartons over the next year, but that’s still small compared with the future potential.”
Read the full story on Pink Lady’s new strategy to develop the Asian markets in the September edition of Asiafruit Magazine. To order your copy, contact subscriptions@fruitnet.com
* Pink Lady is a registered trademark of Apple and Pear Australia Limited (APAL)
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