With its skin a deep shade of purple and striking crisp white flesh, the Bravo apple looks and tastes like no other on the Australian supermarket shelf.
Key points:
- Bravo apples in Australia are entering their seventh commercial harvest
- Within the next two years, commercial plantings of the apple will begin overseas
- Growers say developing export markets are key for reinvigorating their industry
Across the country, the Bravo harvest is underway.
The apple is picked when it reaches optimum balance between acidity and sweetness, a maturing process closely monitored by growers such as Ann Lyster, a Manjimup apple farmer and chair of West Australian apple cooperative Fruit West.
"This is not just another piece of fruit, this is special, this is super-premium," she said.
"Some people say this will be the Louis Vuitton of the apple industry."
While Ms Lyster laughs at the comparison, her excitement around the potential of the Bravo apple to reinvigorate her industry is genuine.
It's also needed.
Reconsider fresh produce value
On average Australians eat 10 kilograms of apples annually, but consumption is not increasing.
At about $8 a kilogram, Bravos in Australia retail at a higher price than other apples.
But Jenny Mercer from fresh produce wholesaler WA Farm Direct said demand and market share of the Bravo was growing.
"It's a high price in the category, but it's not really a high price as a function of daily life ... we're in an environment where we pay $5 for a coffee and $12 for a beer," she said.
"So it's expensive if you look at the apple category, but by itself it's not really."
Apple grower Harvey Giblett said consumers needed to reassess the value placed on fresh produce.
"As a society, we seem to have the opinion that fruit and veggies should be cheap," he said.
"Well that's fine, but we can't grow them cheap. If you are, you're not going to be growing them for too long."
Bravo apples were planted in commercial quantities in Manjimup eight years ago, and have been sold in Australian supermarkets for several seasons.
The unique coloured apple is the result of millions of dollars of investment and 20 years of trial work, completed by industry and staff at Australia's only apple breeding facility, housed in Manjimup and run by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development.
The industry hopes to produce 50,000 tonnes of Bravo apples annually by 2035, but this year only about 3,500 tonnes of Bravo will be harvested in Australia, and about 10 per cent of the crop will be exported to markets in the Middle East and Asia.
But it's the potential of Bravo to expand internationally that has growers excited.
"My greatest wish is that Western Australia and then Australia has a sustainable apple export industry, that obviously has a really good place in the domestic market also," Ms Lyster said.
"But I see it as an opportunity for Australia to actually regenerate its export capacity."
Export market critical to success
The WA government holds the intellectual property rights of the Bravo apple, which is exported internationally under the brand Soluna.
Wholesaler WA Farm Direct is the licensed marketer of Bravo in Australia and into export markets.
CEO Jenny Mercer said the industry was aiming to have about 70 per cent of Australian-grown Bravos exported.
"It's very sweet, but also has a fair bit of acid in it, so it gives a really well-balanced flavour, and what we find in a lot of Asian and Middle Eastern countries, they're really looking for that sweetness, which it has," she says.
"But unlike other varieties, it has a really complex background taste, so it becomes really moreish.
"So then it's about increasing awareness and developing the brand and introducing it as far as you possibly can."
In a bid to retain its value, Bravo will be distributed through a coordinated marketing program.
International growth beckons
Last year the WA government appointed TopStar, a French South African venture, to manage international commercialisation of Bravo, sold overseas as Soluna.
Trees are already growing overseas in trials, they're expected to be planted in commercial quantities within the next two years.
Ms Mercer said negotiations were progressing well with TopStar, but at the forefront of her mind, and the industry's, was retaining Australian apples' value and export presence when lower-cost international producers come on stream with their fruit.
"Nobody wants to do all this work and then in 10 years' time, all this production comes on and that's it, you've lost your market because we're we have a higher cost of production here," Ms Mercer said.
"So unless we can preserve our brand equity internationally, then we've got a big problem here.
"So that's part of the negotiation is to preserve a 10-year [market access] exclusivity period and then to continue to work with TopStar to make sure that we have a system in place that lets us take the brand to market internationally without reducing the brand equity."
Pink lady lessons
Harvey Giblett from Newton Orchards is in his 61st apple harvest.
He can remember the exciting days of the Pink Lady apple, which was also developed at the Manjimup apple breeding facility.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s Pink Lady was exported from WA to markets in the UK, demand outstripped supply, returns to growers were good and the Australian apple industry prospered.
But when international producers of Pink Lady entered the market, Australia was priced out.
"That's been one of the problems with Australia in general is that we're high-cost producers," Mr Giblett said.
"So whilst we've got apples like Pink Lady and now Bravo coming onto the market, we really need very high premiums to make it successful for the orchardists."
Despite Pink Lady still retaining its place as one of the world's most popular apples, exports out of Australia are minimal.
Just 1 per cent of Australia's apples are exported, that figure was once one-third of the crop.
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