Consumer tests give you so much to think about: Feijoa Tasting Day in Wageningen

 Nieuw uit Georgie --- New from Georgia

Georgia and New Zealand have something in common: passion to one exotic fruit: Feijoa. While in these countries everyone loves this fruit and enjoy to consume it fresh as well as convert into jams and even wine, both of us just can't understand how the rest of the world is not as keen on Feijoa as we are ourselves. At Nergeta company we are all passionate about Feijoa too and we too think about the ways of how to make it known and appreciated by consumers outside our country.

Fruit Company's shop is nicest in Wageningen 

because of selection of higher end quality products it offers.

 Our sampling took place in this shop

Before we move to our Feijoa Consumer Tasting Day which Nergeta ran in Wageningen, The Netherlands, I would like to recall some basics of customer acceptance of probably any new fruit:

1. sensory and visual liking: taste, flavour, color, shape, size
2. cost
3. own taste preferences, culture,
4. what is that unique feature of new fruit and how it affects consumer's decision to add this new fruit to her/his existing "default" fruit menu or at least to make her/him interested to buy once a month?
5. how important and "real" are health benefits
6. what is the structure of supply chain and particularly post harvest shelf life which affects availability and marketing period of the fruit: less the storability more difficult to run marketing campaigns

So far only New Zealand made good efforts to market it internationally but it did not end with much success and even if we apply 6th criteria we can see why: Feijoa has only 4 weeks of post-harvest shelf-life and this already fully excluded reliance of supply chain on lower cost sea shipments since transit time from Auckland to London would fully consume its shelf life. Therefore our New Zealand friends had to use expensive air-freight model which made Feijoa one of the most expensive fruit: it was offered at above 10£/kg. One would argue that some fruits actually cost this much or even more but it did not prevent their success and it is true however unlike strawberries and raspberries it is very difficult to sell feijoa type of shape fruit at these price levels. Consumers do pay 3-4£ for 200gr of blueberries but this much blueberries can be enjoyed by 4 persons but it is much more difficult for consumer to pay 1£ for one piece of Feijoa, Kiwifruit, Apple and the kind of round or oval fruits.


Now, coming back to 6th criteria Georgia is in a better position since it can use lower cost truck shipments to Hamburg or Rotterdam and still have another 18-20 days of shelf life after arrival day. This is a quite fundamental structural difference but we still need to pay attention to remaining 5 criteria and get evidences that would justify establishment of export oriented commercial orchards.

This is why we decided to get in face to face contact with consumers and run several product free tasting days and ask questions and receive their comments. This does not mean we will not try to cooperate with chain facilitators such as research institutes, consumer science groups etc.

So, we ran first such free tasting day in a specialized fruit shop in Wageningen, the Netherlands and we found out some previously unexpected consumer impressions and comments, both positive as well as negative. It proved that we need to do such tests many more times and desirably also in cooperation with professional consumer science institutes.

I got 28 consumers to taste our Feijoa and they all answered to some questions and some provided with their impressions without waiting for questions. In first 20 minutes most of consumers who tasted were above 60 years old and female and they mostly disliked the fruit and said they would not buy it in the future. Then saw mostly male and female consumers in between 20 and 40 years and they were mostly liking the fruit and said that they would buy it at least once in a season. This group provided their Feijoa impressions with enthusiasm:

1. male, 28: generally buys exotic fruits and would also buy Feijoa at least once a season. Feijoa reminds him of the taste of Kiwifruit and Passionfruit but says that Feijoa's taste is still unique and he did not expect such a flavour/aroma existed in the nature.

2. Female, 34: Reminds of Passion Fruit, Looks a bit like Fig, thinks that flavor is unique

3. Female, 20: Tastes like Kiwifruit, would buy at least once a season if price is not above 0.50eur per piece.

4. Female, 29: Reminds of Kiwifruit, does not consider the taste as special but likely to buy once a season

5. Female, 62: Unique taste, would definitely buy once in a season

6. Male, 70: Did not like at all

7. Female, 70: Unique, memorable taste, would buy once a year

8. Female, 60: Tastes like bubble gum, pink bubble, would only buy if it is priced cheaply

9. Female, 65: Needs time to get used, curious taste, does not look like anything else, did not like first bite but liked 2nd bite and "second wave" of taste.

10. Female, 60: Strange taste, not bad, needs time to get used

11. Female, 26: Did not like the outer rim of the fruit, but liked juicy part. Taste seemed a bit artificial, a bit un-natural.

12. Female, 60: Very sweet inside (caramel like juice), she would buy it to eat with yogurt

13. Female, 60: Surprising, positive, a cross of Banana and Kiwifruit, would likely enjoy in fruit salad

14. Female, 40: looks and tastes a bit like Cactus, certainly very different taste

15. Female, 42: a bit of Pear like, a bit of Melon, looks a bit like Lime, exotic cut profile, would like with fruit salad.

16. Female, 70: Very nice, better than Kiwifruit, slightly bitter but sweet enough, took one home for husband

17. Male, 45 with ~10 years old daughter: Liked a lot, especially liked juicy part, did not like the texture of outside rim.


Here are some of the pictures of today's event:

Table cover, plates, spoons, the fruit, Ready to Go!

Do you find cut profile attractive? --- this was one of the questions I asked to Dutch consumers

The Dutch lady tastes Feijoa for the first time

There were nice moments when our consumes talked to each other and shared their Feijoa impressions

Konstantine Vekua
nergeta@gmail.com

The blogger is horticultural entrepreneur from Georgia, co-founder of Nergeta Ltd. He currently is doing Master's at Van Hall Larenstein, Wageningen University and will be in the Netherlands till September 2013