This month the subject of the future for small cherry growers continues.
For those small growers without existing commercial links for packing and marketing, let’s explore some possible options.
Identify strengths
Firstly, identify your strengths. Is your small business isolated or in an area with other small producers?
If your orchard is isolated, turn it into an advantage!
Look at a web–based marketing strategy, consider social media sites, and remember that customers are demanding fresh fruit that is locally grown in an environmentally sustainable way.
If there are other small cherry growers in your region, consider joining a food trail which links other like–minded food producers using promotion and marketing to the advantage of local customers and tourists alike.
An interesting example is the Hawkesbury Harvest, a community based food trail on the edge of Western Sydney, now in its twentieth year.
Promote health benefits
Pursue promoting the health benefits of eating cherries. For nutritional information, visit the Cherry Growers of Australia website, or the website of your state organization.
Positive messages
Much is in the general media about food waste, and about over–packaging of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Here is your opportunity to tap into a positive message about your cherry products—use healthy eating and sustainability as a marketing aid.
Link with like-minded businesses
Linking with other food producers in your area may increase your sales. However, make sure you do not have an imbalance of competition of the same type of producers, as that may not be as financially productive as those who are more geographically spaced.
Food pods and improved food systems are currently being driven by the health and well being practitioners in this country, be it federal, state or municipally based.
Find your niche
So decide where you need to be: in the food business; in the healthy lifestyle business; in the tourism business—or all three. Whatever you decide, be passionate about it.
See this article in Tree Fruit June 2017
