Wayne Prowse left his role as export development manager of Horticulture Australia (HAL) today (Friday 27 May), ending some 15 years of service to the organisation.
Mr Prowse, who has played an important role in raising the profile of Australian horticulture at key international trade events, told Fruitnet.com he was leaving to pursue new opportunities in the horticultural export development field.
Having joined HAL’s predecessor the Australian Horticultural Corporation in 1996, Mr Prowse moved into the export domain in 2001 and became export development manager for HAL in 2005, drawing together activities across Australia’s multiple horticultural industries.
He managed HAL’s Australia Fresh trade promotion programme, the market access programmes until 2009 and the export and domestic market intelligence programmes designed to assist in understanding and developing export trade.
In particular, Mr Prowse was instrumental in developing Australia’s sizeable presence at ASIA FRUIT LOGISTICA, the international trade show for fresh fruit and vegetable marketing in Asia, which launched in 2007.
“With the Australian pavilion at ASIA FRUIT LOGISTICA and the Australian networking event at Asiafuit Congress, we have seen this event grow to host the largest contingent of Australian exporters in any place at any one time,” said Mr Prowse. “It’s become our largest annual export trade promotion event.”
As well as coordinating Australia’ presence at events such as ASIA FRUIT LOGISTICA and Fruit Logistica under the Australia Fresh banner, Mr Prowse helped to unify export development efforts across multiple industries in an Australian horticultural sector traditionally hampered by fragmentation.
“I’ve enjoyed working collaboratively with Australian industry leaders, Australian exporters and their peak body the Australian Horticultural Exporters Association, Austrade and other leaders in the fresh produce industry,” he told Fruitnet.com.
Mr Prowse now plans to set up his own business offering consulting and related services in horticultural export development.
David Chenu, Horticultural Australia’s general manager of marketing services, acknowledged the “instrumental” role Mr Prowse had played in growing Australia’s presence at ASIA FRUIT LOGISTICA – and said that HAL was committed to building on this work.
“We had a farewell event here last night, and the entire HAL board came out to say goodbye to Wayne,” said Mr Chenu. “Wayne and the board spoke about Australia’s growing presence at ASIA FRUIT LOGISTICA. We need to ensure that continues to go forward, and that it’s managed with the same degree of professionalism.”
Nevertheless, Mr Chenu said that there were no plans at this stage to replace Mr Prowse as export development manager, a role within HAL that will now cease to exist. “We won’t be appointing a straight replacement, but we want to replace Wayne’s expertise, albeit not in the same structure as before,” said Mr Chenu. “We will put some resource and expertise into the areas Wayne was working in, as well as into different areas. We’ll also dip into expertise that exists outside of Horticulture Australia.”
While Mr Chenu will oversee HAL’s export marketing strategies, including the Australia Fresh programme and participation at ASIA FRUIT LOGISTICA, the operational side will be handled by marketing services coordinator Shanka Dharmaratne.
HAL’s team of marketing managers covering the various product sectors will also become more involved with export marketing activities as well their existing domestic market portfolios. This development aligns with HAL’s broader move to give individual industry bodies greater involvement where desired in their export marketing activities.
Mr Chenu also stressed that HAL’s decision to carve up the export development management function did not signal any reduction in export focus for the group. “Long-term, not withstanding the current issues with our strong currency, the growth opportunity is to a large degree in business development in export markets,” he said. “There are so many opportunities there – we have excellent products, people and companies. Many of them are domestically focused, but others have a strong foothold in export markets.”
HAL’s emphasis on export markets would be increasing rather than decreasing, Mr Chenu added. “We’ll be working with the various industries on projects to develop exports, and we’d like to get the industries working together with one another more,” he said. “Generally speaking, as industries mature they like to take on more responsibility themselves. We want to assist them to identify, create, find and develop as many export market opportunities as we can.”
While confirming that HAL would maintain the Australia Fresh trade promotion programme, Mr Chenu said the organisation would also look to improve it where possible. 'There’s always an opportunity for continuous improvement,” he said. “We’ll go to the industries, the stakeholders and the buyers to find out how we can improve Australia Fresh, be it as a brand, an export promotion or a trade show banner, and optimise its presence.”
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