Australian apricot brand Pride of Prima is continuing its growth as it begins its second season, with hopes of continuing to 'resurrect' the category.
After a smaller trial season last year, Prima Fresh is expanding the apricot brand to Coles Supermarkets and Costco in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland to make it available in the three states.
"The feedback that we were getting from our retail partners was that the apricot category was on the outer," National Sales Manager, Jackson Bennett said. "They were seeing a decline in consumption because consumers just weren't happy with what they were getting. We wanted to give customers something that they would want to come back for more. Last year saw huge success as a category and the numbers were going crazy not just Coles but Costco as well. By the end of the season, the feedback was that the program was the best-performing stone fruit skews. The volume may not have been as high as some of the other lines but it had the lowest wastage at store level and retailers made good margins and the sell-through was strong and consistent. We pulled the apricot category from being on the verge of being discontinued in some supermarkets to one of the more favourable lines - it has a future again."
Prima Fresh has several varieties as part of the brand, as the season runs from mid-November through to late January. Mr Bennett explains that branding the fruit, especially in punnets, allows the company to have more control over the quality and guarantee consistency as it is not being commoditised at the retail level. The product has a slogan of 'true apricot flavours' with the aim of bringing back traditional taste profiles.
"We always knew that we had something special in the qualities from an apricot point of view," he said. "We found with apricot that it sometimes gets mixed on the shelf. A key driver for us was that we wanted to separate ourselves from the rest and give consumers a level of consistency in terms of quality, flavour and eating. We have a lot of varieties from a French breeding program which we knew had that eating quality that was going to give the consumers the confidence to come back and buy more. We went down the line of a punnet because I have seen a lot of success in the berry category, especially based on the fact that it protects the fruit really well. Apricots don't perform well when they are tipped on the shelf, as they are prone to marking and scuffing. So, it was about protecting the product, but also separating ourselves from other suppliers mixed on the shelf. It also gives a price perspective where people know exactly what they were getting for the cost and it was an easy take-home pack."
All the fruit is grown, picked, packed and marketed at the company's property in Tatura in Victoria, just south of Shepparton, which Prima Fresh says is a perfect location for apricot production. The company is expanding production with future plantings going in this year and there are more varieties on the horizon, and Prima Fresh expects to provide more blush, more Brix and high sugars for sweet eating.
"We know where we are going with the category," Mr Bennett said. "We will pick a fair volume this year, somewhere in the vicinity of 2,500 to 3,000 bins of fruit. I think Coles is estimating that they will move between 350,000-400,000 of the punnets. Last year we sold around 150,000-200,000 punnets so it's a sizable increase, we will nearly double production. We have a lot of young trees coming into production this year and starting to bear fruit - so we will have more volume again next season. It is shaped up really well and weather-wise we haven't been hit with any frost, hail or rain damage at this stage so it is set to be a really good season for us."
Mr Bennett added that having multiple varieties throughout the season allows Pride of Prima to be available for longer over the summer.
"Stone fruit is not like apples, where you can store the fruit and sell it over a 12-month period," he said. "Being a soft fruit, you have a 2-3 week sales window from harvest. Typically we have tried to fill different varieties into different windows to give a level of consistency to the consumer in terms of eating experience. So, while they might look slightly different overall it is about having high quality and sugars from start to finish. The consumer is not getting too much difference in variation. We have tried to stage it; they've just landed at some Coles this morning and will range until the end of January, and in the future, we could even go as late as mid-Feburary with new varieties that have recently been planted."
For more information
Jackson Bennett
Prima Fresh
Phone: +61 3 5824 1159
[email protected]
www.primafreshfruit.com.au