Fruit and vegetable producer and marketer T&G Global is launching a new business to develop and commercialise new fruit varieties.
Boysenberries. (file photo) Photo: 123rf
The new company called VentureFruit will focus on new varieties of boysenberries, blackberries, blueberries, hybrid berries and other fruit trees.
Coinciding with its launch, VentureFruit has signed two key partnerships. It is co-investing alongside science organisation Plant & Food Research in a range of new berries, of which VentureFruit will be the exclusive global commercialisation partner.
In addition, it is also partnering with Plant IP Partners to test and evaluate new varieties of apples which have been bred in New Zealand.
Chief Executive T&G Global Gareth Edgecombe said unique plant genetics were critical to shaping the future of a sustainable, global fresh produce sector.
"With consumers' needs continually evolving, it's vital our sector delivers on taste, nutrition, convenience and sustainability. We need to provide consumers and customers with great-tasting healthy fruit and at the same time ensure that what we grow and the way we do it has a light footprint. Plant genetics play a pivotal role in delivering this," Edgecombe said.
He said T&G Global had a history of creating brands from exclusively licensed varieties, including Plant & Food Research's apple cultivar 'Scilate' marketed as Envy, also JAZZ and the company has commercialised the world's first climate-adapted apple from the Hot Climate Programme, a collaboration between Plant & Food Research and its Spanish equivalent IRTA.
VentureFruit business managing director Peter Landon-Lane said now was a good time to offer T&G services to other business which is part of partnering with others.
"We have been doing this for 25 to 30 years, being an internal support function for the sales and supply chain businesses and growing activities of T&G and our growing partners, and with the opportunities we now have and the capabilities that we have built, we decided we wanted to offer this as a service to third parities as well, not just to fruit and vegetables that are going to go through T&G supply channels," he said.
Landon-Lane expected to have 50 fruit varieties over the next decade come onto the market from the different breeding programmes.
They would initially concentrate on berries and apples but could include other temperate fruiting trees and plants.
He said sustainability was having a lighter footprint on the environment.
"Traditional plant breeding has done for some time and will continue to do, and this is why we're really excited about it, the opportunities to bring forward new genetics with better natural pest and disease resistance for example so that means less chemical and better adapted to the effects of climate change without at the same time asking consumers to compromise the nutritional qualities of the fruit and the eating qualities of the fruit," he said.
Landon-Lane said new berry plants would be commercially available within the next few years for New Zealand growers, and internationally after that.
New apple varieties which mature in early to mid season are being planted around the country now.
