Monday, October 19, 2009

AU: Almond industry celebrates success




The Australian almond industry has recorded its most successful almond blossom season to date with record almond sales and festivities held across the almond growing regions.

This year’s almond blossom season extended from late July through till late August.

Throughout this year’s almond blossom season, the Almond Board of Australia (ABA) ran a public relations campaign, advertising as well as in-store promotion in both Coles and Woolworths. The in-store promotion included point-of-sale materials such as posters, shelf wobblers and free almond blossom tins attached to 750 gram bags of natural Australian almonds.

Marketing director at Select Harvest, Matthew Graham, said the almond blossom promotion had been a great success.

“The almond blossom in-store promotion exceeded all expectations with record shipments of almonds delivered to both Coles and Woolworths. It is great to see the sale of almonds is on the rise with results of this almond blossom campaign going above and beyond the results of previous almond promotions,” said Graham.

According to Julie Haslett, CEO of the ABA, domestic consumption of almonds has increased in the last year.

“Australians are eating more almonds than ever before, with domestic consumption having increased by over 10 per cent in the last 12 months,” Haslett said.

Australia currently produces around 3 per cent of the world’s almonds. Over the next three years, as existing plantings reach full maturity, it is forecast that Australia will surpass Spain (8 per cent) to become the world’s second largest almond producer, behind California (82 per cent).

The key almond growing areas around Australia include Sunraysia in Victoria, the Riverland and Adelaide in South Australia and the Riverina region in NSW.

The Almond Board of Australia (ABA) is a non-profit, membership-based organisation representing the interests of Australian almond growers, processors and marketers.

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