Chile is kicking off their second blueberry promotion in the UK, with the dual goals of enhancing sales and securing a permanent market for the fruit there.

The eye-catching consumer campaign, Eat the Blues – You Have to Eat Them to Beat Them, gets underway in January 2008 and is being spearheaded by the Chilean Fresh Fruit Association (CFFA) and complements the national berry campaign run by the Winter Berry Committee.

Christian Carvajal, Marketing Manager Europe-Asia, ASOEX said: “There’s a growing market for fresh berries in the UK, and in the short term we want to take advantage of that; in the long term we want to increase consumer penetration so as to secure a future market for the increased production of blueberries in Chile in the coming years.”

The blueberry, thanks to its flavour and health-promoting properties, has risen quickly up the ranks to become one of Chile’s brightest young stars. In recent years blueberry farms have been springing up across lush southern Chile to grow fruit for export to Europe as well as to established market the US. Over the last two seasons the figures have grown considerably. To the UK alone, shipments grew from 1,440 tonnes in 2005-2006 to 2,307 tonnes in 2006-2007, an increase of 60 percent.

Much of the delicious little berry’s success is down to the fact it packs a powerful punch of immune system-boosting vitamin C and other antioxidants, and is therefore attractive to an increasingly health-conscious public.

Eat the Blues 2008 follows the successful pilot campaign carried out in London, Birmingham and Manchester in January this year, and expanded and now comprises two elements: an on-the-street sampling scheme in Yorkshire, and a national print and online PR campaign geared to the over-50s which has the potential to reach over 3.5 million consumers.

Market data shows that people in Yorkshire eat the least blueberries in the UK and that there is a huge untapped market for the super blue fruit among consumers who are aged 50 plus. The campaign focuses on these two areas.

For the latter, the CFFA will be running national advertorials in print in British lifestyle publications and newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph, Saga Magazine, Reader’s Digest, and Yours, and online on websites such as saga.co.uk and 50connect.com.

“This market has huge potential for us…and this target group needs to be educated on the benefits of adding blueberries into their diet,” Christian added.

The second campaign involves a three-week whistle-stop tour of nine city centre shopping districts in Yorkshire, a potential growth area. The public can get a sample of the fruit and pick up a handy z-card leaflet which communicates the key messages. The on-the-street activities will be backed by local Michelin-starred chef Jeff Baker, who will create a Chilean blueberry-based iconic Yorkshire dish, supported by a PR campaign in the local and regional press.

The CFFA will also be running a consumer offer which enables shoppers to enter a competition to win a year’s supply of Chilean Anakena wine by sending in proof of purchase of Chilean blueberries during January and February. Marketing data gathered during Eat the Blues – You Have to Eat Them to Beat Them will be used by the CFFA to further analyse the UK blueberry market and re-focus the campaign for future years.

“We feel it’s better to focus our marketing activities rather than take a less effective, scattergun approach. We are working very closely with the Winter Berry Committee and together with them we will be able to track how our promotional activities are impacting the blueberry segment. We’re committed to running this promotional activity for a number of years and we’re confident of a successful change in the segments that we’re targeting,” explained Lianne Jones, the CFFA European Field Manager, who added the CFFA is also interested in promoting the fruit on the continent.

She added: “We’re also considering doing some work in Germany. They’re huge producers of their own blueberries. We’ve started to do some market research to understand how the Germans consume local and EU produced
blueberries in their winter; basically, how the market works and what the entry barriers are.”
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