New Zealand kiwifruit marketer Zespri has won the 2degrees Best Growth Strategy award at a prestigious event held in Auckland last night (Nov. 23, NZT), in recognition of its course towards doubling global sales to NZ$4.5 billion (US$3.1 billion) by 2025.

As part of the 2017 Deloitte Top 200 Awards, Zespri was congratulated on its work across the industry to grow a "genuine global sales and marketing organisation" and drive demand for the country's premium kiwifruit.

"This award is real testament to the great team we have at Zespri – passionate, dedicated people around the world who bring to life our global grower-to-consumer strategy day in and day out – and the long-term partnerships we have with our customers," said chief executive Dan Mathieson.

"Kiwifruit is big business in New Zealand but it only makes up 1.5 percent of the globally-traded fruitbowl so we see huge potential to grow the overall category," he said.

"How are we going to double sales in seven years? We’ll continue to grow market demand for our products by building our premium Zespri brand and kiwifruit products to best meet the needs of our growing consumer base with a relentless commitment to quality, taste and safety."

Innovation is key to driving this growth too – the kiwifruit industry invests around NZ$35 million (US$24.1 million) a year in innovation with more than half of this invested in Zespri’s joint new varieties breeding program with Plant & Food Research, developing new products to attract new consumers and grow the overall category.

"Ours is a collaborative industry and to hit this ambitious target, we’re working with growers, postharvest and our other supply chain partners to invest and build capability and capacity to achieve the significant opportunity that lies ahead of us,” Mathieson said.

A recent report from the University of Waikato estimated the New Zealand kiwifruit industry on track to create another 29,000 jobs and triple GDP contribution to more NZ$6 billion (US$4.1 billion) by 2030, due largely to Zespri’s gold variety SunGold.

“Doubling sales in the next seven years would mean over NZ$3 billion (US$2 billion) returned to communities around New Zealand – our export returns were NZ$1.6 billion (US$1.1 billion) to New Zealand last season and this will double by 2025," Mathieson said.

"This is a vital contributor to communities in kiwifruit growing regions across New Zealand."

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