Avocado insights: moving beyond volume across Asia

As markets develop across Asia, Westfalia Fruit has set out its vision for the next phase of avocado growth in Asia. It says that understanding how consumers choose, use and experience avocados will become increasingly important, which will require a more integrated approach.

Westfalia Fruit’s insights reveal that consumer habits, quality expectations, routes to market and preferred formats vary significantly across Asia. It says China, Japan, South Korea and India illustrate why the region cannot be approached as one homogeneous avocado market:

• In China, avocados are increasingly finding their way into drinks and food applications alongside fresh consumption.
• Japan remains a highly quality-focused market, where consistency and presentation are particularly important.
• South Korea combines fresh demand with opportunities across avocado-based products.
• India is developing rapidly as more consumers discover the category and access expands across retail, foodservice and e-commerce.

“Asia’s avocado category is moving into a different phase,” said Hans Boyum, Customer Director Developing Markets at Westfalia Fruit. “Volume alone will not drive the next stage of growth. We need to understand why consumers choose an avocado, how they enjoy the fruit, and what gives them a great experience. Those expectations are different from one market to another, so our focus is much bigger than simply supplying more fruit.”

For Westfalia Fruit, this means increasingly working backwards from the consumer. Insights into taste, ripeness, size, format, convenience and eating experience can influence not only how fruit is supplied and marketed today, but also product development and the characteristics considered in future avocado varieties. Through its research and varietal development capabilities, Westfalia Fruit can connect what customers and consumers may need in the future with decisions being made at the very beginning of the value chain today.

“We have the ability to connect what happens with the consumer all the way back through the value chain,” Boyum said. “That is important because decisions made today can influence what customers and consumers will have available to them years from now. The closer we can connect those decisions to real market insight, the better positioned we are to develop the category for the long term.”

Consumer and customer insight can help inform product and varietal development, creating a stronger connection between market expectations and characteristics such as quality, eating experience, format and varietal performance.

“Understanding the differences between markets has very practical implications,” said Diego Vasquez, Asia Commercial Lead at Westfalia Fruit. “Origin, specification, ripeness and format all need to reflect how the avocado will ultimately be sold and consumed. Our role is to bring those elements together consistently and make it as easy as possible for our customers to grow the category.”

Image credit: iStock.com/ChristopherBernard