In these exciting times for the British Columbia blueberry industry, Vancouver-based produce distributor Oppenheimer Group expects a strong season ahead for its Canadian grower-partners. At www.freshfruitportal.com, we caught up with the company's category development director Jason Fung, who also discussed the importance of pack flexibility at retail and upcoming promotions, as well as other items of interest for the summer campaign including Californian vine ripe tomatoes, Australian Navel oranges and New Zealand kiwifruit.

It is quite fortuitous we arranged this interview in light of the recent Chinese market access announcement for BC blueberries.

Indeed. I'm sure there will be a flurry of activity that will be occurring over the course of the next year or so. From what I understand the agreement will come into play in the fall of 2015 for the following season, so we're looking at that one. I know it's been an item that's been in the works as an industry for quite some time, and it's quite exciting for everyone for sure.

As a North America-based trading company, does it affect Oppy that perhaps some of the BC supply will go to China in future?

At the end of the day our job is to partner with our grower-partners that we've got here and who we work with very closely. If we can be a part of their strategy into China, undoubtedly we'd love to be a component of that - what's good for the grower is good for Oppenheimer.

Would you be able to share some examples of how you've worked in China in the past for North American crops, and what that could mean for B.C. blueberries?

If you look at Oppenheimer and our other domestic crops, whether it's our key apple program in Washington with our proprietary varieties, the Jazz, Envy and Pacific Rose, or if you look at our cherry deal in Oregon with Orchard View Farms, there are certainly some significant export plays into not just China but the rest of Asia, specifically Japan, South Korea and South East Asia.

There’s a lot of strong connectivity and experience with that, and a lot of partnerships developed through time into those areas. When we talk about China specifically, it's certainly an area of great interest to us as we look into the other crops we do into there, and we'll be exploring the BC blueberry program into China now that this news has been a lot more official.

Now that the announcement's been made, we can certainly start to align ourselves and pursue those partnerships in China that we've established with those other crops.

By no means does it mean from a marketing standpoint that the U.S. market becomes any less important to us. To some extent it become more important for us

Domestically, has the increase in local volume had any downward impact on returns, or has demand kept prices steady?

There are two independent factors, and where the two net out is an an interesting topic. There's no doubt that there's been an increase in the supply of BC blueberries over the years. I'm a local kid born and raised here in Vancouver, and even I see it develop and grow all around me.

Couple that at the same time with the sheer growth of the berry category in the retail sense, both in the United States and in Canada, have we hit our peak of demand as an industry from a blueberry consumption standpoint? I don’t believe so. I think it's certainly a recognized superfood and still has some growth potential within this marketplace.

So those factors of supply and demand continue to move, but our job as a marketer for our growers is to continue to increase consumption.

How has the retail response to that been in terms of innovation and approaches to boosting blueberry sales?

It's really that flexibility in the pack styles which has helped manage those peaks and valleys in terms of supply, whether it's moving in our out of different regions both from a domestic standpoint and an import standpoint. Being able to consistently promote blueberries in the right pack formats helps manage the category through either the sheer volume or the lack thereof.

That level of flexibility in working with our retail partners has helped us manage our blueberry category much more effectively. There has been a lot of development for everyone in the area of pack styles, towards 1- or 2-pounders and kind of away from the traditional 6oz and pint packs. While those still have a very strong foothold in the blueberry community, it’s really about being able to offer out to our retail partners and their customers the pack style at the time that will work best for them.

You mentioned in a recent press release the BC season was running 10-14 days earlier. Will that lead to an earlier finish?

We're traditionally able to carry this thing on through that middle of the second week of September. It could certainly end earlier, and that first week of September is looking like a likely time. So it's one of those deals that has the ability to extend a bit beyond our friends to the south in Washington and in Oregon, and makes a lot of headwind in the marketplace through that time when it kind of becomes a dominant force on the West Coast.

And what does that mean for transition from the Washington State and Oregon crops?

For Washington and Oregon - in a lot of crops and not just the berry category, whether it's our tomatoes in our greenhouses, our cherries in central Oregon - everything has been very early. It's been a mild winter for us here on the West Coast and very warm, so there's been a lot of flowering and early development on all crops up and down the West Coast.

From a Washington, Oregon and B.C. perspective, they’ll certainly be in more similar timeframes than they would be otherwise, but it goes back to supply and demand. We're excited about increasing consumption and giving our retail partners the opportunity to promote through some key periods, like Canada Day next week and the 4th of July, followed by strong promotable volumes through July and the first portion of August.

Blueberries are a perfect summer fruit – whether it's picnics, barbecues or going to the beach, there are a lot of strong use cases for blueberries in the summertime, and I believe our retail partners will promote very strongly to support that effort. It’s a superfood that’s quick, easy and convenient to take with you wherever you’re going.

Will there be a bit more of a gap in the market for that early South Hemisphere, Argentine deal?

We think it'll be tighter than it has been traditionally. As for how quickly the Argentinean deal shapes up, it's a little bit early to tell at this stage but we're anticipating a tightness in the market more so than usual.

We've spoken a lot of about blueberries, but what would you highlight as some other key crops in development?

There are a lot of exciting things happening for us at Oppenheimer this summer. If you look at our set-up and our matrix across 10 key commodity categories that we work in, each one of them has some unique developments within it.

Looking at our summertime program that we're getting steam behind at the moment, the New Zealand kiwifruit program is off and running and has been for some time – the development of the SunGold variety in New Zealand into the North American market has reached incredible consumption. It is an incredible piece of fruit both cosmetically and in the brix levels we're able to attain, not to mention the health benefits of the kiwifruit category on its own. Again, there's that convenience aspect of that cut and scoop mentality around kiwifruit.

Coming in to the rest of our program, certainly the vegetable deal that we do out of Oceanside, California with vine ripe tomatoes is a marquee deal for us that'll kick off next week with its first picks - it's a high quality, round, real slicing tomato and it comes back to that aspect of summertime foods that in the fruit and vegetable world work very well in terms of burgers and barbecues.

The other one I’d make mention of is our Australian citrus program that’s underway at the moment; containers are on the water and due into Los Angeles very quickly; it's a very well-developed program from a North American sense for us with a lot of key customers really driving towards that Australian Navel as that marquee eating item in terms of the countries they source from that are available this summer.

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