Florida-based produce company Brooks Tropicals says it is seeing increasing emphasis on social media nowadays, which it says is a "fantastic vehicle" for interacting with consumers about often little-known fruit commodities. 

Brooks Tropicals director of marketing Mary Ostlund

Director of marketing Mary Ostlund said having a strong social media presence and supporting retailers with their posts had been of great benefit as a growing number of people look to try something new.

"We're finding that consumers interact with you a lot more on social media. They have questions, they want to know answers, and it’s a fantastic vehicle for working with and talking with them," she told Fresh Fruit Portal at last week's New York Produce Show and Conference.

"I do four social media posts a day, and that goes across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. So I put together a post, and for our customers what I will do is I'll give them the images and the copy so they can post it as their own, which gives it a wider distribution."

Ostlund said her posts were a mix of recipes, information, and showing the dishes, highlighting that her most-viewed webpage involved a guide for an easy way to slice up Caribbean Red Papayas.

"It’s kind of scary because you’re either in social media or you’re not," she said.

"If you’re in social media it’s almost like going down a black hole - you can’t just do one post a week, you’ve really got to do two, three, even four posts a day to have a presence."

She explained that for tropicals, it's not so much about the brand name as it is about getting people to try the fruit.

"Take dragon fruit -  people want to know 'what does it look like on the inside and what do you do?' That’s what social media’s all about," she said.

"With apples people know what to do, but what do you do if you fall in love with passionfruit? I had someone the other day say they love it but it’s only in season three or four months a year, and I said ‘you can freeze it in ice-cube trays and just pop out a cube every time you want one.' Grapefruit doesn’t freeze well but passionfruit does."

Brooks Tropicals is asked a range of questions on social media including about GMOs, how to tell if the fruit is ripe, and where the produce comes from.

"They also ask what to do with the fruit, depending on the evolutionary scale. So for avocados, yes you can make guacamole and eat it sliced, but what else?" she said.

"Papayas are a little bit further back, so they're just beyond asking 'what does it taste like and what do I do with it?', so it's getting them to try it in a different way.

"But with passionfruit, it's a case of 'what do I do with it?'. A lot of people don't realize it's better tasting when it's all wrinkled, so it is really 'how do you gain enough knowledge to get the most out of the fruit?'"

She said starfruit was in a similar situation to passionfruit, albeit a little better known as it had a foothold as a garnish on drinks.

Ostlund also said that sales of all the company's produce categories were growing on an annual basis.

"Our sales star fruit last year alone grew 20%," she said, adding the company had just bought more acres of passionfruit production. 

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