What was it all about?

This investment was tasked with developing individual export strategies for a range of tropical commodities including passionfruit, lychee, persimmon, papaya and banana, feeding into an overarching export strategy for Australian tropical fruit.

The new Passionfruit Industry Export Market Development Strategy was released during May, with its overview of trade opportunities and considerations available from Hort Innovation here in a brief market mapping report. 

As a quick takeaway, the document outlines the best-prospect export markets for Australian passionfruit as New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the US – with Singapore and Hong Kong export opportunities having a focus on the food service industry, and the UAE opportunity related to fresh juice outlets. Meanwhile, challenges identified include industry connectivity.

Following the strategy findings, the next steps involved Hort Innovation working with industry to determine the appetite for levy investment in the export space and to subsequently roll out any trade-related R&D activities.