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Man 1: Good evening. On ’Business World’ tonight, it’s my pleasure to welcome Peter Bull from the New Zealand Kiwi Fruit Marketing Board - the KMB for short! Good to have you with us, Peter. First of all, for those people who may not have seen kiwi fruit, what are they?
Man 2: Well, they’re a small, green, round fruit and they’re delicious! New Zealand now exports more of them than any other fruit and vegetable - so kiwi fruit are very important to us economically. Of course, New Zealand is famous for lamb and wool production, and trade in both of these is still very good - though dairy products is actually the biggest area in terms of export income.
Man 1: I see.., and can you tell me why the KMB was started?
Man 2: Well, some years ago kiwi fruit farmers found they were producing more fruit, but the market wasn’t growing at the same rate. So the KMB was formed - partly to set up distribution to retailers and so on within New Zealand, but also to find more customers for kiwi fruit around the world - in other words, to make the export market bigger.
Man 1: I see.., now just what do you do to find more customers around the world for a particular product.., especially one which people have probably never seen before?
Man 2: Well, there are a number of ways of doing this. Some marketing boards might do an international advertising campaign, so that when anybody in one of the target countries watches TV, they’re certain to see the product. That’s fine, but of course it costs a lot, and it’s not really suited to our product. So we’ve always approached this in a different way - we want to be certain that anyone who buys our product anywhere in the world has a guarantee that what they’re buying is of the highest quality. This is the best long-term policy.., you can do all kinds of things, like selling at cost price at the beginning so that your product is cheaper than its competitors, but we didn’t think that would present the right image, and in the end you’ll only have to raise your prices anyway.
Man 1: So, as with anything, it all comes down to how good your product is...
Man 2: That’s right.
Man 1: And where do most exports of kiwi fruit go?
Man 2: Well, our market is expanding all the time. Our oldest markets are in Europe and Japan, but demand is growing in the Middle East and Korea. Our latest destinations are South America and Vietnam.
Man 1: Really? So kiwi fruit are becoming truly international...
Man 2: Yes. And kiwi fruit currently make up 25% of all fruit exported by New Zealand.
Man 1: And do you expect that to rise?
Man 2: Yes - to 32% in five years’ time, a 7% increase we hope!
Man 1: Mmm - OK how does the fruit get from grower to customer?
Man 2: Well, most kiwi is exported by sea though some is sent by air freight to Australia. The fruit comes into the ports by truck, after being packed by the growers at local packing stations.
There is a plan for express rail transport in the future, which should speed things up a bit more.
Man 1: And after the fruit arrives at the ports?
Man 2: Well, it’s stored on the ships in large wooden boxes. We send 50 million boxes out of the country on 80 ships - but that’s not enough! We’re quite happy with the design of the boxes, and we know we’ve got exactly the right temperature on board for the fruit - in other words, our technology isn’t a problem - we simply need more ships to be able to work as efficiently as we’d like to.
Man 1: And how do you see the future developing?
Man 2: Well, we hope to work out ways to send the fruit even more quickly to our export markets, to keep it as fresh as possible.
Man 1: Mmm - well thank you, Peter. One last question - is kiwi fruit popular in New Zealand?
Man 2: Yes... In fact it recently became the second biggest seller on the home market. It’s overtaken sales of pears - although it’ll be a while yet before we overtake apples. But that’s OK of course, because all New Zealand fruit is delicious!