2024 APAL Industry Forum Shaping Success Strategies

The Australian apple and pear industry gathered at the highly anticipated APAL Industry Forum on 3 June 2024 at Zinc in Melbourne. The event served as a platform for industry professionals to connect, exchange knowledge, and delve into critical discussions about the industry's future. With a line-up of esteemed speakers such as Simon Kuestenmacher, Josie Zilm, Sarah De Bruin, and Stuart Gregor and engaging panel discussions, the Forum offered valuable insights and actionable strategies for industry stakeholders.

Quality is King

Justin Smith from APAL launched the national quality project to monitor 20 major packhouses for quality in-store this sales season. He and Nardia Stacy from Pomewest discussed the significance of quality assurance in the session “Quality is King.” They highlighted the importance of industry collaboration and performance monitoring in ensuring consistent fruit quality. Nardia shared successful initiatives and learnings from Western Australia, showcasing how quality programs can drive industry standards and improve market competitiveness.

Nardia spoke about the WA industry’s quality program’s history, process and success. Since the inception of the WA maturity standards being self regulated by the WA apple and pear industry the 30% fail in testing rates in 2018 has progressively improved over the years, with the industry now maintaining 97% passes since 2022.

This is a collective win for WA apple and pear producers with data measured in the latest Harvest to Home Market Review in April it was reported Western Australia grew the most of all states in both dollar sales and volume, with 7.9% for dollar sales, and 4.0% for volume. Which equates to Annual Household figures jumping to $90.29 in value, and 20.5 kilo per household per year for apples.