Grow the pie? Piece of cake…

Hello from the Fruitnet newsroom. At the last count, there were just under seven hundred billion different apple brands on sale around the world. Well, at least, it feels like that sometimes. Even if that were an accurate count, Pink Lady might still be pick of the bunch. Why has this trademark done so well, in a market where others falter and fail? Our recent video series The Power of Branding has some of the answers. And as our colleague Chris White writes, it’s a brand that changed the way fruit is marketed forever.

This week, it emerged that White may have had a hand in selecting Pink Lady’s original variety, Cripps Pink, on a visit to Australia in the early nineties. Since then, Fruitnet has had a hand in raising the brand’s profile. But of course the key ingredients in this commercial pie are baked into the Pink Lady supply chain itself – the inherent quality of its fruit, the laser-focused marketing strategy, and the strict standards that its growers and packers all follow.

It’s also important to recognise the contribution made by our friend Didier Crabos, charismatic founder of Pink Lady Europe and one of the main architects of its success, who steps down from his role as the association’s chair this week. His incredible energy and enthusiasm will be missed, not least by those who remember his celebratory emergence from within a big cake when Pink Lady gathered to celebrate its 20th anniversary. In February, the brand enters its fourth decade. I wonder who will emerge from inside the gateau this time?

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More freshly picked stories…

La grande inquiétude ???? “The prospect of an escalating tariff policy is a concern,” admits Daniel Sauvaitre, president of France’s main fresh produce trade association Interfel, in our latest Fruitbox podcast episode. France sends a fair amount of fruit to the US, but it’s the knock-on effect of proposed duties on Canadian and Mexican goods that worries Sauvaitre most. “It could destabilise international markets for fresh fruit and vegetables,” he warns, “because it will redirect quantities to other markets, with pressure on prices.” Important export trades may also be in jeopardy if retaliatory duties come into play. It would be terrible news for US pears, for example. Exports are already set to fall by 23 per cent to 85,000 tonnes this season, the lowest since the 1980s, after the country produced its smallest crop since 1967/68. And most US pear exports go to… Canada and Mexico. Also exclusive to Fruitnet.com this week is a comment piece by Anecoop’s former commercial director Paco Borrás, who considers the pros and cons of the EU-Mercosur deal. Spoiler alert: it’s complicated.

Underground movement ?? Europe could soon have its own supply of organic, fresh ginger. I went to the Netherlands to see for myself how Sawari Fresh has expanded its business from imports to local production. And after all that rooting around, I put together this short film about them.

Crown jewels ?? Our excerpt from Carl Collen’s Eurofruit Magazine interview with Gianpaolo Renino says a lot about the kind of growth many see in fresh pineapples. As the man from Del Monte explains, it’s a product with qualities that remain underappreciated by many. That’s why the company wants to sell a number of different pineapple varieties worldwide, including Honeyglow and Rubyglow.

Gene genii ?? Arctic, a series of genetically modified apple varieties that don’t go brown when cut, have been approved for sale in the US for almost a decade. Now Okanagan Specialty Fruits, the company that invented them, plans to work with New Zealand’s fruit-breeding powerhouses Prevar and Plant & Food Research to develop more premium apple and pear varieties. As markets like the UK begin to distinguish between gene editing and gene modification, opportunities to use such techniques and create even more marketable products will surely increase. That could be helpful for British growers. New analysis commissioned by British Apples and Pears indicates recent government policy changes will mean higher costs and consumer price rises in 2025. Elsewhere, VentureFruit has appointed Chilean supplier Copefrut as exclusive Latin America licence-holder for its hot climate apple Tutti. And South Africa’s apple exporters have opened one of their Christmas presents early, to find that Thailand has restored their market access.

Club world ?? ?? Grape and stonefruit innovator Sun World says it has expanded its international network of licensees to more than 2,700 growers, 180 marketers, and 35 North American importers this year. One of its newest agreements is with WA Farm Direct. The group already grows and sells the breeder’s stonefruit varieties, and markets its table grapes, in Western Australia. Now it has the green light to produce Sun World grapes in the eastern part of the country too. In Chile, meanwhile, Subsole has exported its first table grapes to the US under a new protocol known as the systems approach. Commercial manager Andro Vidal says the first shipments will arrive on 16 December, and describes this as “great news and a huge step forward for the Chilean industry”. In the US itself, Susan Day is to retire as vice-president of international marketing for the California Table Grape Commission. She has represented the state’s growers in markets around the world for more than two decades. The commission also has a new director of community service and health programmes.

Dutch courage ???????? One of North America’s largest fresh produce companies, Taylor Farms,?has invested in Hessing, a leading European supplier?of fresh fruits and vegetables. Cindy van Rijswick of Rabobank says the deal may surprise some, but points out that the Netherlands is the second-largest destination for US foreign direct investment, after the UK. Another Dutch fresh produce supplier, The Greenery, continues to focus on its core business. In the past week it revealed plans to sell its transport division Dijco to AB Texel, and then to source all of its transport services in the Netherlands and abroad from that same logistics specialist. The company has struck similar sale-and-leaseback deals in the past involving warehouses and even its Barendrecht head office.

Espa?a’s helpers ???? Spain’s berry growers rely heavily on migrant seasonal workers, many of whom are flown in from as far afield as Colombia, Ecuador and Honduras to harvest their fruit. This week, officials from industry association Freshuelva were in Tangiers to recruit another 1,300 people from Morocco. But in other parts of the world, the economics of labour provision could make automation a far more cost-effective option in future. A team at Michigan State University just received a grant to investigate new harvesting technology for blueberries and asparagus. And such efforts are crucial for suppliers as they face up to greater competition from new sources of supply like South Africa and Zimbabwe, where blueberry exports continue to grow.

Fuelling efficiency ?? Everywhere you look, someone is trimming transport costs and transit times – although none can match a certain logistics professional based in the Nordic region. Packaging company Termotécnica says its new recyclable, expanded polystyrene containers can cut airfreight costs, reduce CO? emissions, extend shelf-life and regulate temperature. That’s good timing for its grape-exporting clients in Brazil, which just secured access to China. StePac, on the other hand, says its packaging reduces the need for ice-filled polystyrene and waxed carton boxes for long-haul veg shipments in both the US and Japan. And logistics company Kuehne & Nagel claims to have “substantially reduced” transit times for fresh produce shipments into UAE-based supermarket operator Spinneys. For Latin American fruit exporters, the outlook from a logistical perspective is far from positive due to labour tensions, tariff adjustments and unanticipated diversions on key routes. That said, fresh fruit exporters have taken full advantage of the newly opened Port of Chancay in Peru.

Gold rush ?? Organic yellow kiwifruit continues to gain in popularity in Italy, Belgium, and Greece, according to the backers of It’s Bio, a marketing project funded by the European Union and Italian association AOP Gruppo Vi.Va. And New Zealand looks set to offer the market more yellow kiwifruit next season, especially from the country’s north-east where better weather and new plantings have boosted production. That kind of expansion is fuelling a surge in the country’s horticulture sector, with export sales set to reach NZ$8bn (US$4.5bn) for the first time in 2025.

Up and down under ???? “There is going to be a lot of change in Australian horticulture. I think we’re going to see some rationalisation and consolidation.” Our latest edition of Produce Plus carries an exclusive interview with Scott Montague, CEO of Montague Farms, in which he discusses the company’s future direction following its merger with Pomona Valley.?It also contains a cover feature on Australian berries, and updates on summer mango and stonefruit campaigns. More details here. Meanwhile, the first exports of Tasmanian cherries are about to leave the country and arrive in Asia in time for the Lunar New Year celebrations. And, despite recent poor weather, Australia has produced more of its famous macadamias.

Also ripe and ready…

?? The latest edition of? Asiafruit Magazine ?is now available to subscribers on the?Asiafruit?app – download it from Apple or Android, or view on your computer, for the latest news and views across Asia’s fast-moving fresh produce markets.?Click here to subscribe.

?? Eurofruit Magazine’s first of two Fruit Logistica editions explores the major trends and growth opportunities in Europe's fresh produce business, with exclusive features, interviews, commentary, and analysis. Click here to subscribe.

Thanks for reading and a Happy Christmas to all…

Mike Knowles, Fruitnet Europe

PS Asia Fruit Logistica has announced the dates and location for its China Meet Up in September 2025. This year’s event includes a China Study Tour and the inaugural AFL Fresh Produce Golf Cup. More details here.