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Zespri International Limited is the world’s largest marketer of kiwifruit, selling kiwifruit in more than 50 countries and regions. Our purpose is to help people, communities, and the environment around the world thrive through the goodness of kiwifruit. Our mission is to create sustainable long-term value for kiwifruit growers, by offering consumers the world’s leading portfolio of branded kiwifruit 12 months of the year.
Why China. Zespri’s initial entry into the greater China region was through Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Zespri’s experience of the strong demand from local consumers in those markets for Zespri kiwifruit gave us confidence in the potential of the mainland Chinese consumer. In 2008 we opened our first mainland office in Shanghai.
At the time China accounted for only 3 percent of Zespri exports but has grown rapidly to account for more than 25 percent of Zespri’s total business. In 2022, Zespri’s exports to the greater China region (including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau) reached NZ$1 billion.
Total volume was 130,000 tonnes of which mainland China accounted for some 100,000 tonnes – 85% of which is Zespri’s SunGold™ variety.
Today Zespri has more than 100 staff across greater China network in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Taipei.
Partners
The success of our business and the continued success of our partnerships in China is due to the strength of the Zespri ecosystem in China. Our key distribution partners continue to be Joy Wing Mau and Good Farmer while our top retail partners include Pagoda, Sam’s Club, Xianfeng, Benlai JD.com. On the supply chain side we have worked very closely with our warehouse provider VX and our customs clearance partner PFS Sinotrans. Without their support the Zespri brand would not have had the same level of success in the China market.
Major milestones
Challenges
When Zespri first entered the mainland China market, we weren’t sure of China’s future direction. China was then a very small market for Zespri with high tariffs. We also had ongoing issues which have made us very nervous, particularly around understanding the rules of trade, and around IP protection in the market. There was also widespread counterfeiting of our brand. More recently there has been the spread of unauthorised planting of our protected SunGold variety. This is a serious issue for Zespri and we are committed to taking action to protect the interests of our consumers and customers to ensure that they only get the best quality genuine, safe Zespri product going forward.
Prospects
Despite these challenges we have been aware of the long-term potential of the China market for our kiwifruit. We’ve continued to invest and build relationships with our customers and grow demand for our kiwifruit. Over the years, we set up local offices and hired some amazing local talent. The New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement came into force in 2008 and since then kiwifruit tariffs have been gradually reduced to zero. This has been a great help in making Zespri Kiwifruit more accessible to Chinese consumers. More recently we became Importer of Record where Zespri is responsible for importing the fruit. This has also helped bring us closer to the market and to our customers and all of those who manage the rules of trade in China.
We have also invested in our own coolstore network to service our direct customers. Over the last few years of the Covid pandemic, that become critically important as the pandemic has created a lot of disruption with our supply chains both coming into China and across China. We worked closely with our local partners and we have managed to overcome these issues and move ahead really well. With the ending of the pandemic we can go forward with more confidence and invest and create value for Zespri and our partners in China.
Fruit sector trends. The key consumer trend has been towards quality and this has helped drive Zespri’s growth in the market. The big increase in imported fruits has also built expectations that some fruits including kiwifruit should be available all year around. Zespri has the ambition to do just that so that we can have a great quality, safe piece of kiwifruit for our consumers every day of the year. We are currently doing research into the feasibility of local production and a final decision would be made subject to the support from our New Zealand kiwifruit growers.
There has also been big changes in the occasions how and where fruit is consumed in China. For example, Zespri has become very popular as a gifting item during Chinese festivals. Because people like to give something which is good and healthy for others Zespri fits in perfectly. We have adapted our offering and our packaging to make sure it is easy for our Chinese consumers to choose us and make this a healthy gift of choice.
Zespri is also very much committed to driving innovation in the fruit sector. Last year Zespri started with our Zespri RubyRed kiwifruit. This new variety has been very well received and has been successful in helping Zespri reach new younger consumers. The supply of Zespri RubyRed will increase over the next few years as production ramps up in New Zealand and we are very excited about the variety’s opportunities in China.
Next 50 years. China’s rapid development has seen the transformation of Zespri’s business and China is now our single largest country market. Looking at the next 50 years, Zespri is even more committed to continuing to invest and grow in the China market by delivering the best quality kiwifruit to Chinese consumers and to continuing to make really positive contributions to Chinese communities.
Learn more about Zespri here (NZ site)
Learn more about Zespri here (CN site) 佳沛奇异果