Issue No 9, January 1998.

NOTICE: Hard copies of the Australian New Crops Newsletter are available from the publisher, Dr Rob Fletcher. Details of availability are included in the Advice on Publications Available.

10. Marketing adventures with "seedless" watermelons

I first became fascinated with seedless watermelons in 1984, when I was a Horticulture student at Hawkesbury Agricultural College (now the University of Western Sydney); I had studied Science, majoring in Chemistry, at Sydney University but wanted to expand my interests.

At College, I spent time in the library working my way back through the horticultural journals, looking for useful information on fruit and vegetable crops.

In the February 1971 issue of "HortScience" there was an article on seedless watermelons, with a full-colour cover illustration. Seeds in watermelon have always been a major irritation to me. I followed the reference trail, from the article, back to 1951, getting excited about something I had not previously realised existed.

I now had all the knowledge necessary to breed my own seedless watermelons and embarked on this project, for purely scientific satisfaction. After four attempts, over two years, I produced seedless watermelons. In the meantime, I discovered that seed for such watermelons was available from a seed company in Australia, so in 1986-7 I grew some of these in the field and discovered they were much more difficult to grow than seeded watermelons.

Eventually, I learnt how to grow seedless watermelons in the field, using any published information I could find, as well as trial-and-error. By this time I found several seed companies in the US, Japan and Taiwan that also had the seed available. I wrote away for their catalogues and imported small quantities of all available cultivars of seedless watermelons, seven in all.

In 1987-8, I conducted a field trial with these cultivars on a friend's property near Hawkesbury College and planned to use the fruit in a marketing trial. This was a potential new crop so there were several questions, apart from the usual marketing considerations of Price, Place, Promotion etc.:

Was consumer demand dependent on fruit quality, such as shape, external and internal colour, flesh texture and sweetness?

For the grower, which cultivar produced the best yield, which was the best to store, were all the cultivars adequately disease resistant and which cultivar was the most reliable in terms of maturity?

I then conducted my own marketing and production trial, using the training I had received at university, plus my own production experiences, to date.

The first decision I made was to go "up-market," so special presentation packs were prepared and a particular outlet targeted. The packs carried two watermelons each and had gold-embossed labels printed with my own logo, for which Trade Mark protection was obtained.

After casing the up-market fruit shops in Sydney's eastern suburbs, the largest shop with the highest turnover was targeted.

Transporting the product was going to be a problem but my own car was hit while parked and was off the road being repaired for several months. In the meantime, an old Toyota Hi-Ace van was bought to transport the melons in their presentation packs.

Watermelon growers know that the time to market is crucial for the best prices, especially just prior to Christmas. The plan was therefore to grow a small area of seedless watermelons myself, using black plastic mulch with a view to advancing the maturity. The bulk of the crop was to be grown by a commercial grower to mature two to three weeks later, in mid January.

The early crop was used to spearhead the promotion and gauge the level of consumer interest in the product. I dressed up in my business suit and, armed with chilled samples of my watermelons, approached the targeted shop to speak with the manager. His curiosity was stimulated about my new crop and once I had his full attention, I showed the samples. He was visually impressed and was eager to obtain an exclusive supply, after tasting the product.

From the costs of production incurred, taking into account the higher cost of seed and the higher risk with seedless watermelons, it was apparent that 80c per kg would not be sufficient return, and a return of $1 per kg wholesale would be needed to provide sufficient monetary return for growing the crop.

After much negotiation, the manager agreed on $1 per kg, with a recommended retail price of $1.99 per kg for cut melon. I insisted that my cut melons be displayed wrapped in plastic film, with my label affixed, in a refrigerated display. Whole melons were to be cool stored. I supplied a number of smaller melons, free of charge, for cutting and sampling by potential customers.

The next day, I delivered the melons, set up the display and the free samples, took photographs and waited to see if anyone would buy at this price, especially since seeded watermelons were selling at 99c per kg.

By the end of the day, most of the free samples were gone. Most people said the product was sweeter and crisper and had a better colour. Nobody bought any.

The next day, my spies (relatives and friends) went to buy the product, hoping some sales would encourage the shop staff to promote the product. After five days, the only sales had been those I had organised. The fruit shop manager got his money back and I had some information, so we were both happy.

Concurrently, I approached the local newspaper in the hope that they may be interested in running a story about the new fruit. Unfortunately, such a story had to be accompanied by a paid advertisement.

I approached a statewide rural weekly newspaper, based in Sydney and they ran a story but by the time the issue appeared, the trial was over. A month later, a tabloid Sunday newspaper, based in Sydney also ran a story, which created lots of free publicity, including radio interviews. My aim at this stage was to interest potential growers, as well as the public in case the results of the marketing trial, once it was completed, indicated that full scale production and marketing was going to be profitable.

At this stage, I took a lower key approach. Abandoning the salesman /business suit appearance, I took samples to three smaller fruit shops and offered each of them a special introductory price of 40c per kg and they all placed orders. The fruit sold well at 79c per kg cut, which was, by now, only 10c above seeded watermelons. Sales of seeded melons slowed so my melons went up to 99c per kg and good sales continued.

The next orders were supplied at 60c per kg and the shops paid this price but 60c per kg was still well below what was needed for a long term viable industry. On the next orders, the price was increased to $1 per kg. Only one shop paid this price and the turnover was 15 fruit per week.

By this time, the fruit I had grown was just about finished and I was waiting for the crop to be harvested by the commercial grower. Unfortunately, the grower harvested the seedless watermelons at the same time as his crop of seeded fruit. This had significant effects on the quality of the seedless watermelons.

Seeded watermelons colour up internally if harvested while still immature, but seedless melons do not. Hence, the fruit was pink-fleshed and not as sweet as it should have been.

My arrangement with the fruit shops was they did not have to pay for fruit which did not meet the standard of the samples they had been shown. I had already replaced two or three fruit from my crop which had been over-ripe. Since they were paying big money, they could not afford to continue if quality was not guaranteed.

I cut open a few of the commercially-grown seedless watermelons and they were all immature, so I was unable to guarantee the quality of the fruit.

One of the fruit shop managers explained to me he could not afford to buy fruit without a guarantee, at any price. Rather than put the poor quality fruit on the market and risk offending retailers and consumers, the trial ended. All fruit was dumped and the marketing data analysed.

No matter how I massaged the numbers, calculating gross margins for different combinations of production and marketing expenses, there was a problem.

Costs had to be cut to a bare minimum. Gone were the expensive labels, the boxes and even the black plastic mulch.

The final result was that, in my judgement, there were just not enough people willing to pay the retail price which was necessary to keep the grower and the retailer happy. So full scale production plans were abandoned.

Some two years later, a company was apparently formed by someone else and 20 kg of triploid seedless watermelon seed, worth a reported AUD 60000, was imported from the USA and Israel. Fruit was marketed in conventional bins through Flemington Markets in Sydney.

Fruit quality was good but the price received would not have been sufficient, in my opinion, to sustain an acceptable level of return. This fruit was on the market for two seasons.

Today, ten years on, seedless watermelons are again on the Australian market. Prices I have seen have ranged from 89c to $1.48 per kg cut retail, but with seeded watermelons at less than half this price usually, I do not know if this new crop will succeed in the long term.

I still grow seedless watermelons for my own eating pleasure and to give away to friends, but have no plans for a commercial venture, following these experiences.

Contact: Dr Rob Fletcher, School of Land and Food, The University of Queensland Gatton College, 4345; Telephone: 07 5460 1311 or 07 5460 1301; Facsimile: 07 5460 1112; International facsimile: 61 7 5460 1112; Email: r.fletcher@mailbox.uq.edu.au

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originally created by: GK; latest update 6 June 1999 by: RF