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Gareth Edgecombe: T&G Global Chief Executive discusses strong financial result from premium apple demand · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Premium apple demand is apparently the reason for a strong
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  Speaker 2: financial result for T ANDNG Global. Its revenue has increased
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  Speaker 2: by fourteen percent to one point six billion. Its net
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  Speaker 2: profit after tax is sixteen million, and that's up from
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  Speaker 2: a loss of about ten million dollars. The chief executive
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  Speaker 2: is Gareth Edgcombe. Hi, Gareth, Hey, you the hoe's loving
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  Speaker 2: the apple so much?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Generally it's across the world, in particular the Asian
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  Speaker 3: markets and the US markets, and that's focused on our
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  Speaker 3: premium brands of Jazz, Jolie and Envy.
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  Speaker 2: How do you decide which are the premium brands?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, really good question. We spend a lot of time
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  Speaker 3: with starting with our genetics company, which screens a whole
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  Speaker 3: lot of apples from around the world from many different
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  Speaker 3: breeding programs, and we've got an extensive consumer and orchiding
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  Speaker 3: research team that actually screened for the best tasting apples
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  Speaker 3: and the best grown apples, and from that we get
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  Speaker 3: a long list down to a very very short list,
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  Speaker 3: and the best candidates we then try and scale up
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  Speaker 3: into large scale brands, and so for example, the Jazz
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  Speaker 3: and Envy brands, they've been commercialized for the Envy brand
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  Speaker 3: for over fifteen years as we've looked to scale it up,
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  Speaker 3: and that's based on the fact that it's just and
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  Speaker 3: all of those key markets has the attributes of great appearance,
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  Speaker 3: great taste, great crunch, and great flavor. Yeah, and yeah,
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  Speaker 3: that's really how we determine it.
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  Speaker 2: What about this looks sorry, this is going to be
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  Speaker 2: a slightly bizarre line of questioning, But what about juiciness
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  Speaker 2: Because we had a discussion about this on the show
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  Speaker 2: sometime ago. A bit of a juicy apple is a
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  Speaker 2: good thing, you don't want to dry thing, But sometimes
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  Speaker 2: they overjuice and that's almost as annoying.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one of those complex things where it's crunch
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  Speaker 3: and juiciness and flavor all combined and it's hard to
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  Speaker 3: break apart. But when consumers describe what they like, they
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  Speaker 3: it's a combination that they really like.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean what I'm talking about with too much juice,
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  Speaker 2: is that just a me or is that normal?
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  Speaker 3: I'm not really sure. I know what you mean. When
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  Speaker 3: you think about a Nashy pair are pretty juicy aren't they.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because you know, like an apple. The thing about
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  Speaker 2: the apple which is great, which I'm telling the guy
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  Speaker 2: who's the chief executive of the business. But the thing
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  Speaker 2: about the apple it's great, is that it's a fuss
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  Speaker 2: free snack, Isn't it? Like you can eat your thing
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  Speaker 2: and then you can throw it away and you're not
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  Speaker 2: left with juice all over your hands. Anyway, as I say,
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  Speaker 2: bizire line of questioning, forget that we even went there.
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  Speaker 2: Tell me about what's going on with the berry business.
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  Speaker 3: The very business. So we're relatively new into scaling up
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  Speaker 3: our berry business. And that's on the back of again
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  Speaker 3: the genetics work to identify really great tasting consumer berries
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  Speaker 3: large generally, larger berries are what consumers prefer, and working
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  Speaker 3: with the Plant and Food or the by Economy Science
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  Speaker 3: Institute as it's now called, we've been working with them
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  Speaker 3: on identifying those genetics and then looking to scale those globally.
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  Speaker 3: We've got a really good program in Australia. We've got
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  Speaker 3: another program growing up north in Kaikoe and those are
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  Speaker 3: servicing the domestic markets more locally. And then we've got
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  Speaker 3: a recent partnership with a really large grower in the
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  Speaker 3: US called California Giant, and in that program, we're looking
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  Speaker 3: to crack into the US market by bringing those species
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  Speaker 3: and genetics into the US market and scaling up over
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  Speaker 3: the next few years.
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  Speaker 2: So when you say a larger berry, do you mean,
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  Speaker 2: for example, if we're going to go out and buy
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  Speaker 2: a punit of strawberries, we want them to be bigger strawberries.
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  Speaker 3: Yep. I think so strawberries are large and red, but
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  Speaker 3: there's probably a limit. Mostly I'm focusing on when I
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  Speaker 3: say that larger berries is the blueberries. You know, there's
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  Speaker 3: a if you've gone into the supermarkets and seen those
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  Speaker 3: jumbo berries that are slightly smaller that are grape and
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  Speaker 3: they're really crunchy and crispy and right.
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  Speaker 2: We've discussed this, yep, we've discussed this on the show
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  Speaker 2: as well. So the what I had wondered when we
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  Speaker 2: had a chat about this is are you trading flavor
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  Speaker 2: because generally when something is smaller, it's more concentrated.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it can it can be. And again that's part
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  Speaker 3: of the selection is if we want to go and
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  Speaker 3: get that ideal size, it can't be compromised in taste
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  Speaker 3: and flavor and crunch.
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  Speaker 2: Why do people want their blueberries to be bigger.
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  Speaker 3: Pass I think there's there's probably a natural propability and
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  Speaker 3: crunch that people snack on.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, okay. Now, how much of a problem
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  Speaker 2: is China to your business in them trying to rip
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  Speaker 2: off some of your brands.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's just on China itself overall. First of all,
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  Speaker 3: it's a fantastic consumer market for us. And when we
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  Speaker 3: look at the growth profile going forward, particularly the Envy
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  Speaker 3: brand large red, crunchy and sweet, and that's a preferred
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  Speaker 3: product profile for China. We're getting great growth in that
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  Speaker 3: across the market, across all forms in the market, modern
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  Speaker 3: trade and online trade and traditional trade. We see that
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  Speaker 3: continuing and growing strongly into the future. It's a great,
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  Speaker 3: great market. We've also partnered with local partners in China
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  Speaker 3: to grow our Envy brand, and that is to be
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  Speaker 3: able to satisfy some local demand, but also to make
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  Speaker 3: sure that we are working locally to protect our IP.
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  Speaker 3: And so with any you know what it's like with
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  Speaker 3: anything that's really good, you'll get people trying to rip
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  Speaker 3: off that IP. And we are quite vigilant trying to
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  Speaker 3: look around the world about where we've either got brand
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  Speaker 3: rip off where it's just taking the brand and pretending
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  Speaker 3: to be the same species, or in fact someone's actually
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  Speaker 3: stolen material and then planted it, and in that case
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  Speaker 3: we actually have to do a genetic test to prove it.
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  Speaker 3: And in the case in China, we actually saw that occur.
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  Speaker 3: Somehow someone got some material from around the world and
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  Speaker 3: planted it. We're able to trace that down and working
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  Speaker 3: through the court system in China get a ruling in
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  Speaker 3: favor of us to actually get that removed and find allocated.
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  Speaker 3: So we're really pleased that the Chinese system has uphold
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  Speaker 3: the core global IP protection laws and that's made made
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  Speaker 3: it really easy for us to ensure that we're protecting
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  Speaker 3: the brand going forward. Well sorry, not easy, but easier
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  Speaker 3: because of the support of the Chinese government.
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  Speaker 2: Ye, Gareth, it's good to talk to you. Thank you
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  Speaker 2: very much. Gareth Edgecombe, T and G Global Chief Executive.
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