Summerfruit Annual Report

Hort Innovation’s Summerfruit

Annual Report

BY SCARLET ROXBY MERCHANDISER, STONEFRUIT WA

With the release of the Hort Innovation’s Summerfruit Annual Report, key figures have been released regarding the levy’s expenditure in regard to research & development of the industry.

With 23 R&D investments underway, it is important to understand the projects are often national, though relevant to the WA industry. With a new Hort Innovation (HIA) Extension Manager in WA, it is our goal to secure more HIA funding into WA. One consumer-sourced project delivered this year is the Harvest to Home dashboard (www.harvesttohome.net.au). This dashboard provides regular household purchase data and insight reporting on apricots, nectarines, peaches and plums. “Recent activity shows that For example, projects regarding apricots were increasing quickly, at 9.3 per cent in terms of dollars ($), while increasing (5.8 per cent) in terms of volume (kg). Buying Qfly eradication, exotic spotted wing drosophila control and Xylella bacteria vector research, new apricot variety production for fresh and dried varieties and biosecurity requirement policy household percentage fell from for international export (e.g. low dose 27 per cent to 26 per cent. The bromide fumigation of plums). average dollar spend rose from The Hort Innovation Summerfruit Fund $7.38 to $8.11. Apricots remained supports the submission of applications unchanged in terms of average weight purchased (kg).” Extracted from Harvest to Home, Apricots. The current Summerfruit Strategic Investment for new and renewed minor use permits of the industry, as well as data generating activities to support chemical permits and registrations, and strategic agrichemical reviews. Their support Permits can be found in the report in more detail. Plan 2017–21 is due to be helped secure emergency renewed in the coming year. permits for crop protection Performance analysis will chemicals as a result of evaluate the progression of the detection of Fall Armyworm in current plan’s ambitions and help guide Australia for the first time in 2020. These ongoing priorities for investment. permits can be found in the report in In regard to the R&D project pathways, six investments were completed in more detail, and permit updates will be released via their e-newsletter. the 2019–20 period, with four new Finally, an update on the marketing investments confirmed, and fourteen campaign for domestic and projects are ongoing. Please note three international advertisements. Some of these projects are funded through content included a range of recipes, HIA as they are more broadly across images and videos targeted at both horticulture, however, still assist the domestic and international consumers, R&D of summer fruits. While these in partnership with MyFoodBook projects are primarily based on the (www.myfoodbook.com.au). East and South coasts of Australia, the information received can assist in WA’s summer fruit industry.

3 CARAMELISED peach crumble cup recipe, created in partnership with @nourish_naturally.

PHOTO © @AUSSIESUMMERSTONEFRUIT & @SUGARETAL 3 PLUM and Nectarine ginger pavlova recipe, created in partnership with @sugaretal.

Stonefruit inspired media content created 13.9million opportunities for engagement.

Print, digital and social media content and coverage reached 13.9 million opportunities for Australians to see the summer-fruit inspired content. Hort Innovation organised an exclusive breakfast event in December 2019, hosting 20 key media and influencers in Sydney’s CBD. The content created from this event was published in OK! Magazine’s February issue and Women’s Day February and March editions, reaching over one million people.

Food and lifestyle influencers @sugaretal and @nourish_naturally were engaged to produce three recipes inspired by summer fruit.

International export activities included a wide variety of campaign and marketing to engage customers from three target countries: China, Thailand and Malaysia. The campaign of Taste Australia cut across all three countries and delivered more than AUD$1 million in gross merchandise value (fruit sold during activities), engaged more than 50 million consumers and delivered a return on investment of more than 4:1. The COVID-19 pandemic only disrupted the flow of these campaigns during February, with only slight modifications required during this period, however, all stock was promoted and sold as previously planned. ●

MORE INFORMATION

For more information, visit:

www.horticulture.com.au/growers/ summerfruit-fund/