Quality program to put data into marketing decisions

Ensuring a great consumer experience each time an apple or pear is eaten is at the heart of this industry initiative to drive market growth. 

Key points

• APAL quality program testing data will be published online. 
• Pressure, Brix, blush and defects tested at retail in Vic, NSW and QLD. 
• Consistent quality is critical to market growth. 
• Support available to help growers address challenges. 

APAL’s quality testing program results will be published publicly for the first time this season, allowing apple and pear growers to view their own performance and benchmark it against other growers. 

Providing data back to individual growers on how their apples and pears are measuring up at point of sale aims to improve storage and marketing decisions to deliver better quality more consistently and, ultimately, to build sales. 

APAL Industry Services Manager Justin Smith said ensuring every apple or pear a consumer bites into is of consistently high quality had to be the foundation of any industry initiatives to drive market growth. 

“Whether we are marketing how crisp and juicy apples are to domestic customers, or talking to international buyers about great Australian apples, we need to make sure the reality matches the hype,” Justin said. “But at the start of harvest we are still seeing Gala picked too early and at the end of the season we have over-mature fruit with a short shelf life and poor eating quality. 

“Consumer research shows us that if someone has a bad apple or pear eating experience, it will be six weeks before they try that fruit again. 

“As an industry, we can’t leave this to someone else to fix. We need to fix it ourselves.” 

Growers will be able to check the apple and pear quality dashboard to see how their fruit quality performs against individual retail specifications and how it measures up against other growers.

Data dashboard 

Lack of consistent quality is one of the biggest challenges the industry faces in rebuilding domestic consumption. 

The APAL program, which began in 2021, follows successful quality programs run by the table grape, citrus and mango industries. It also follows the successful introduction in Western Australia of minimum maturity standards for apples and quality testing at wholesale and retail, which is now in its fifth year (see page 24). 

Testing of Pink Lady and Gala apples and Williams and Packham pears has been conducted under the APAL program at early season, late season and as the fruit comes out of storage, as well as when the fruit arrives at the retailers’ distribution centres (DCs) and, finally, on the retail shelves. In addition, APAL has collaborated with Fruit Growers Victoria (FGV) on pre-harvest maturity testing. 

This season fruit will be sampled straight out of high-volume stores at all three major retailers in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland and assessed by APAL partner Quality Associates for firmness, soluble sugars (Brix), colour, bruising and other defects, including internal browning.  

The results will be de-identified and published weekly on a data dashboard on the APAL website from the end of April. Growers can obtain their own identification code from APAL and see how their fruit quality performs against individual retail specifications and how it measures up against other growers. 

The de-identified data is also shared with Coles, Aldi and Woolworths through individual portals that allow them to see only their own data. Retailers in turn are sharing data from testing at their DCs. 

The precise data that will be made available via the APAL portal is still being finalised, but Quality Associates Managing Director Dr Andreas Klieber said it was already possible to filter for a particular quality parameter, state by state, retailer by retailer and by either loose fruit or prepacks. 

“Retailers are not identified,” Andreas said. “But you can see that one might be doing better on pressures, or another has more blush or more bruising. That drives behaviour in the supply chain as well.” 

Maintaining the crunch  

Early testing has focused on Pink Lady and Gala apples as the areas where the most quality gains can be achieved. 

“Pink Lady is the number one variety (by volume), so if its quality is not great this affects a lot of consumers and it impacts on the whole category really,” Andreas said.  

Andreas said Pink Lady apples coming out of storage this season were showing better results for pressure, suggesting practices around fruit put into storage, or sending soft fruit, might be changing. 

“In contrast to previous years, pressures are holding up well,” he said. “Normally we might expect to see a drop down coming out of storage, but we haven’t seen it to that extent. 

“Associated with better pressures though, 35 per cent of batches were below Brix specifications. So, while the mouthfeel or the crunchiness is good, fruit were less sweet or blander.” 

Andreas said the ability to split the data out into individual growers was powerful and would make possible discussions around changing practice. 

“Apples are stored for up to 10 months and so there’s lots of opportunity for things to turn out not so well,” he said. 

“If fruit regularly have issues, then maybe the storage isn’t quite right, or the harvest was not at the right maturity or packing out of a storage room stretches too long and so the fruit are getting soft or have other issues. There are lots of possible reasons but being aware of quality issues gives you the ability to basically work that through.” 

Whole of industry alignment 

Ensuring a great consumer experience is a whole-of-supply-chain effort and Justin said the APAL quality program would operate alongside other initiatives including levy-funded in-store merchandising to ensure that once it left the orchard, fruit was stored, handled and presented under optimum conditions. 

A successful APAL and Hort Innovation levy-funded merchandising program in 2022, delivered by Strikeforce, educated retail staff at over 700 stores nationally on best-practice merchandising to improve appearance and quality of apple and pear displays. Results showed an improvement in sales across merchandised stores versus non-merchandised stores of up to 3:1. 

In his presentation at APAL’s 2022 Forum on the success of the merchandising program Rowan Blyth, then New Business Director at Strikeforce, said true value emerges when the conversation shifts from growers and retailers blaming each other for quality issues, to building trust, respect and whole-of-industry alignment. 

FAQ  

Q: Will APAL publish names as has been done in other programs? 

A: The program is about providing growers with valuable performance data to target areas where they can make changes to improve fruit quality and returns. At this stage data will only be identifiable by growers using their own APAL-issued ID code.  

Q: Will APAL share my data with retailers? 

A: Data is shared with retailers under the program, but is de-identified. 

Q: Will everyone’s fruit be tested? 

A: Testing is random and if your fruit is marketed through Coles, Aldi or Woolworths in NSW, Vic or QLD it may be tested. 

A: If my fruit is not performing well coming out of storage, where can I access support to change this? 

Q: Support for improving fruit quality is available through APAL, your state industry association and your agronomist.  

Q: Why is the program restricted to NSW, Vic and Qld? 

A: The program is currently targeted where it can achieve the greatest impact, in the eastern states that produce and market the largest volume. 

Q: Where do I get my ID-code to identify my data? 

A: Contact APAL’s Industry Services Manager Justin Smith on [email protected]. 

Q: When will the data be published? 

A: The data will be published on the APAL website in the coming month. 

Q: Do I have to be involved, or can I opt out? 

A: Quality Associates, who are performing the assessments for APAL, are not reporting individual packhouse data to the retailers or back into industry. The data will be presented so that it represents the industry as a whole, so excluding any organisations data would dilute this. 

Further reading 

“Time is ripe for getting harvest maturity right”, AFG, Autumn 2020, https://apal.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Time-is-ripe-for-getting-maturity-right-AFG-Autumn-2020.pdf 

“In-store merchandising: a shared responsibility”, June 2022, https://apal.org.au/in-store-merchandising-a-shared-responsibility/ 

“Enhanced shopping experience for apple and pear consumers”, Hort Innovation Impact Update, November 2021, www.horticulture.com.au/growers/impact-update/impact-update-articles/enhanced-shopping-experience-for-apple-and-pear-customers/ 

This article was first published in the Autumn 2023 edition of AFG.