By Fresh Produce Marketing founder Lisa Cork

I’ve recently been fortunate to spend 10 days in Chile speaking at several produce conferences and learning more about the success of Chilean horticulture.

As a Californian produce girl who now lives in New Zealand and does a lot of work in Australia, Chile's reputation as a fresh produce powerhouse in these regions is beyond compare. Simply mention the word Chile to a grower down under and there is a general sense of awe tinged with a bit of jealousy. Producers in every country wish their country marketed itself and its products as well as Chile.

So it was with great surprise that I discovered Chileans don’t see themselves the same as the rest of the world. They feel like they are fragmented. They feel as if every company looks out for themselves, plays their cards close to their chest and there is a general lack of cohesiveness where it could benefit the common good of all producers.

While this sentiment is not unique among growers, for some reason I perceived Chile had managed to move beyond it. It is an interesting lesson in perception and one I feel that is important both in branding and in packaging.

In the produce industry, Chile is a brand. It is an origin brand. You look at the investment the various Chilean horticultural promotion bodies have made in the brand over the past twenty to twenty-five years and Chile has been a branding success story. Yet internally, there seems to be little appreciation of Chile’s brand value among Chileans. The horticultural world’s perception of Chile is much higher and much stronger than the Chilean producers perception of the brand is.

Let me explain the impact. I spoke at a table grape conference in Copiapo. The region is facing many challenges, no doubt. Water issues, competition for labour, increased competition for the early season window from Peru, Brazil and later Californian varieties. Sitting through the conference in Copiapo, many people spoke of these challenges, but few spoke of the opportunity or the brand value of brand Chile. If I was doing the SWOT analysis for the region, I would be factoring in the value of the Chilean brand as a trusted region, experts in global export, world leaders in food safety certification, the country with the most free trade agreements of any country in the world, etc. Those are all aspects of brand Chile that should be considered in any SWOT analysis because they are valuable and can be leveraged with retail buyers contemplating grapes from different countries.

Horticulture faces a similar issue with its on-pack communication. Growers, marketers, importers and exporters view fresh produce and fresh produce packaging from a very plain, pragmatic and perfunctory point of view. They perceive their pack from a production position and see it purely as a containment vessel for safely getting the product from A to B. This blinds them to consumer perceptions and opportunities for better on pack communication.

Again, going back to Copiapo. There were discussions about the importance of color and berry size and bloom and berry size consistency. These quality characteristics are important, but they are mostly important to the retail buyer. The consumer has different perceptions about what is important. Consumers value characteristics like taste, seedlessness, crispness and sweetness, as the majority of grape consumers are young families. They want a product their children will eat without complaint and ask for more!

My personal opinion is, for fresh produce consumption to grow in markets where fruit and veg consumption has become stagnant, you need to place increasing importance not just on the quality specification that is important to the retailer, but on the quality specification that is important to the consumer. The moment you do this, you shift your thinking and you start to view your product from the position of what has consumer value. Consumers perceive the value of fresh produce. As an industry, we just need to sell them on what they value better on-pack.

Got a great sticker? Share it with me and I will feature it in a future column. Using a QR code on a sticker or on your produce packaging? Please share that as well as I will be devoting a future column to QR codes. Send samples to: Lisa@freshproducemarketing.com. Lisa Cork helps fresh produce companies get more sales by improving their packaging communication. You can follow her on Twitter: @broccolilady or visit her website.

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