BerryWorld has kicked off its South African blueberry season, with the first of its new Mountain Blue Orchards (MBO) varieties arriving in the UK and Europe this month.
The UK soft-fruit giant's South African division is forecasting a total seasonal supply of more than 6,000 tonnes across the August to January window, representing growth of over 30 per cent on last year.
Exclusive growing rights for the MBO programme for Europe and Africa, as well as exclusive selling rights, were secured by BerryWorld at the end of 2014. The MBO varietal offer is described as featuring firm berries with a good balance between sweet and more acidic fruit to meet the needs of consumers in different countries. The berries are notable for contsistently outperforming market stalwarts on size and even surpassing world records.
BerryWorld also has significant MBO plantings and volumes available from northern hemisphere territories such as Morocco, Spain and Portugal to ensure a 52-week supply.
“This season is exciting for so many reasons,' said Jason Richardson, managing director of BerryWorld South Africa.'We are expanding our production, including some new territories. We are expanding and developing our loyal customer base and we also continue to develop our IP and systems through dedicated R&D work. But nothing can be more exciting than supplying our customers with our MBO varietal offer. With its superior size, crunch and flavour profile we are confident that blueberry consumers around the world will be suitably delighted during the 2018 season’’.
BerryWorld believes its expanded offer will help it keep momentum in what has been a strongly performing blueberry category, particularly in the UK where sales have tripled in the past decade. The premium end of the blueberry market is also showing significant growth, but all markets are on the up.
Category manager Chloe Butler said: “Even in these mature markets, there are still opportunities to drive penetration. Kantar data for the UK shows that in the 12 w/e 31st December 2017, market penetration on blueberries was 22.1 per cent compared to a summer average of 36 per cent for the May to July 2018 window.
'The MBO varietal offer gives BerryWorld the opportunity to bridge the typical gap between the end of Polish and UK, bringing South African supply into Europe as early as possible to continue to delight blueberry shoppers and maintain high levels of market penetration.'
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