T&G Global Teams Up With Plant & Food Research and CarSol Fruit Export
NEW ZEALAND - I made a shake the other day using frozen blueberries, and I remember thinking fresh blueberries would be amazing at the moment. Fast-forward to today, and I think T&G Global may have been reading my mind. The New Zealand-based company just announced that it signed two new partnerships to bring tastier, fuller-sized blueberries year-round. T&G Global will now be working with Plant & Food Research, a science organization, and CarSol Fruit Export, one of the world’s largest berry growers.
“Blueberries are a key strategic play for us in building our global portfolio, and we’re delighted to build another global category to emulate the success of our premium apple brands. We know there is strong consumer demand for blueberries and teaming up with Plant & Food means we get access to a pipeline of world-class varieties,” said Gareth Edgecombe, CEO of T&G Global.
According to a press release, T&G Global and Plant & Food Research have announced they will be working together to breed and commercialise new varieties of blueberries to be sold globally.
The breeding program will produce new varieties of blueberries that will provide improved yield and resistance to disease while also delivering consumers larger, tastier berries over a longer period, with an extended harvest season. New commercial varieties could be launched globally in the next 12 months under T&G Global’s Orchard Rd brand.
“Securing exclusive rights to the best varieties is the first step in our strategy to build multiple global verticals that drive and enable value and add demand through strong consumer brands,” Edgecombe continued.
The new partnership builds on an existing agreement that grants T&G Global access to a suite of Plant & Food Research-bred and licensed blueberry varieties for production in Australia.
“Plant & Food Research and T&G Global have a strong relationship that began at their legacy organisations in the 1990s,” commented David Hughes, CEO of Plant & Food Research. “T&G has an excellent track record of commercialising our varieties, most notably the apples branded JAZZ™ and Envy™. We are looking forward to continuing building on this history and delivering excellent blueberries for New Zealand and global consumers."
T&G Global also announced a joint venture with CarSol Fruit Export, enabling the year-round supply and sale of high-quality berries into the lucrative Asian market in future. The press release also noted CarSol brings strong commercial experience in the Europe and U.S. markets and decades of expertise in the growing, sourcing, packing, and shipping of blueberries worldwide.
“We see this as the beginning of a long-term partnership that will give us the ability to source the highest quality supply of blueberries from their global grower base and, working together, build out Asia,” Edgecombe stated.
Over the past few years, T&G Global has been working with CarSol to source blueberries for its customers, however the closer partnership will allow T&G Global to deliver more value by combining CarSol’s deep expertise in blueberry growing and commercial experience with T&G’s sales and marketing experience in Asia.
“T&G Global has ambitious plans and aims to significantly increase sales of blueberries into key Asian markets in 2020 under the Orchard Rd brand, via the new strategic partnership,” Edgecombe continued. “With our combined strengths in growing, sales, and marketing, we’re looking to ramp up the velocity with key customers in Asia, build the Orchard Rd to greater heights, to replicate the international success we have had with JAZZ™ and Envy™ brands.”
CEO of CarSol Fruit Export, Sebastián Carmona, noted that both CarSol and T&G Global share similar values regarding sustainability and have a customer-focused culture, opening up possibilities for further integration in the future.
“With global production of blueberries set to increase exponentially in the next few years, quality will be the critical factor in driving consumer demand,” Carmona said. “We’ve been investing in order to expand our production and commercial network to become a year-round, leading global player in this industry. We see this partnership as an opportunity to reach the highest growth potential market in the years to come, particularly with T&G’s unique knowledge of the Asian market.”
The new partnerships sound like a berry enjoyable experience for all. Keep checking back with ANUK for more produce updates of the world.
