A promotional campaign for South African grapefruit in the UK is to focus on educating consumers and highlighting the eating quality of modern varieties.
The sector joined the cross-category Beautiful Country, Beautiful Fruit campaign this year, contributing up to R9 million (£813,000) to the initiative.
The aim is to increase volume sales to the UK by 10 per cent on 2008, without dropping prices. The target for this season is to export one million 15kg cartons to the UK, from mid-May through to September.
Two representatives from South Africa toured the UK last week to meet retailers and make plans for the promotion.
Justin Chadwick, chief executive of the Citrus Growers’ Association (CGA) of South Africa, told freshinfo: “We have never been involved in any market development promotions in the past but the grapefruit focus group was keen to back the project. At the vote, 75 per cent of the group voted and of those, 90 per cent were in favour of including grapefruit in the promotional campaign. The rationale is that if we boost supply in one market, we release the pressure on other markets so prices go up…
“During the last two decades, the UK grapefruit category has declined in volume and value, we largely believe because many shoppers still consider grapefruit to be sharp-tasting and inconvenient to eat.
“However, South African growers have worked hard to develop exciting varieties such as Star Ruby, which is juicy and sweet. These, alongside pink grapefruit and more established white cultivars such as Marsh, mean we now have a much broader offer of fruit that appeals to more shoppers.”
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