Table grapes market access and trade development project (2024-2029) (TG23000)

What is it all about?

This investment secures and enhances market access for Australian table grapes through export readiness, capacity building, export compliance, market access, market intelligence, in-market relationships and more.

Challenge            

As Australia's premier fresh fruit exporter by value, the table grape industry has continued its upward trajectory, showcasing remarkable resilience and adaptability in response to changing global trade dynamics.

Building on a foundation of success, where exports surged from 30,000 tonnes valued at $80M in the early 2000s to an impressive $623M in the 2019-2020 season, the industry has spearheaded efforts to sustain and expand market reach and efficiency.

As the production and trade of Australian table grapes continue to expand, the industry faces increasing risks. Phytosanitary breaches, food safety incidents, agrichemical residue violations, and other technical breaches pose significant threats to trade. These incidents can disrupt operations for the businesses directly involved and the table grape industry as a whole. Consequently, a significant focus of this program is risk mitigation, aimed at safeguarding the industry against financial and reputational damage.

Response

This program aims to fortify the industry's position in established and burgeoning markets, addressing the challenge of sustaining and incrementally increasing export volumes.

Critical efforts include:

• Educating growers on compliance with the Accredited Properties Legislation.
• Enhancing quarantine and non-quarantine protocol negotiations.
• Upholding stringent biosecurity measures to protect import and export activities.

These initiatives target critical export markets with a major focus on risk mitigation to safeguard the industry against financial and reputational damage.

The project will prioritise:

• Collaborating with Hort Innovation to refine and implement an industry-specific Export Strategy, addressing market access, improvement, and development priorities.
• Contributing to Hort Innovation's market development programs, aligning with the Export Strategy and Strategic Investment Plan (SIP) outcomes.
• Creating comprehensive export training materials and Export Quality Standards, enhancing industry-wide capabilities.
• Facilitating grower access to export registrations and supporting the Department of Agriculture's audit processes.
• Developing business cases for new market access and improvements and offering expert advice to various stakeholders.
• Coordinating international inspections and logistics for trade missions, enhancing industry readiness for market disruptions.
• Ensuring industry knowledge continuity and fostering collaboration across horticulture sectors.

Benefit

This program will ensure the table grape industry is informed and capable, aware of export opportunities and requirements. Other benefits will include:

• Evidence of maintained and increased export knowledge, attitudes, skills and aspirations within the Australian table grape industry leading to practice change
• Improvements in export supply chains and market access
• Effective management of export-related risks
• Close collaboration with linked industry projects
• Maintenance of export markets and development of new export market opportunities.