02/21/06 India`s potential market for U.S. apples

For the last two years, the U.S. apple industry has been eyeing the opportunity to gain ground into a fairly new, but fast emerging, market. But part of the question when it comes to sizing up India as an apple export market has been that nation's effort to produce and market apples in its own right. Rebecca Baerveldt of the Washington Apple Commission says logistics such as transportation, marketing, and infrastructure are all challenges that India's apple industry must overcome in order to grow. BAERVELDT: They're trying to develop their own industry but the structure of the Indian apple industry is quite different. They're really not geared up to provide the volume of apples that country can consume. And so we're looking to come in and basically pick up the slack on that market. And there is going to be a lot of opportunity there in the future. And according to Baerveldt, that means several things. For starters, there is the sheer numbers of the potential Indian market. BAERVELDT: Any time you've got a market of over one billion consumers. Now of course not all of them are able to afford those apples, but we figure that if our target market is roughly 250 to 300 million consumers which is sizeable by anybody's standards. Target market is defined as India's growing economic middle class. Then add attempts by India to move away from the grocery store mentality, and embrace the Wal-Mart's and other giant retailers of the world.