A recently established avocado marketer in Australia has said its unique business model allows it to operate in the market at lower costs than its competitors while being able to reward growers with stronger financial returns.

The Avolution is a grower-owned business founded in 2012 by two of Australia's leading avocado grower and packer businesses in Queensland - Donovan Family Investments (DFI) and Sunnyspot Farms (SSF).

Realizing the challenges of marketing a crop for just a part of the season, the two growers decided to create a 12-month-a-year operation that could supply the chains, retailers and wholesalers all year round.

They also hired former Avocados Australia CEO Antony Allen to help develop the market.

Allen told www.freshfruitportal.com while it was initially 'a good internal challenge' to earn the trust of growers throughout the country and make them feel comfortable using a different marketing model, the business quickly took off.

"We started to visit people and talking to people, and what's happened over the last three years is growers have tried us, or tested us by sending us a small amount, and then by the end of that season we'd generally have 100% of them on board," Allen said.

"So in that sense the model sold itself, and that's how we've worked. And we've rolled it out to each of our regions [in Australia] as we've gone.

"All growers want to know is if they're going to get the best money and that they're going to get paid the money."

Allen explained that whereas wholesalers or resellers would generally take a fee of around 12.5% of the sale - about AUD$4 (US$3.10) of a typical tray  - The Avolution had a flat fee of AUD$1 (US$0.78) per tray.

"So in that sense they're picking up quite a significant saving," he said.

"In terms of building the model, we've disrupted the comfortableness of the successful wholesalers and resellers in Australia by actually looking at the costs, working out what it really costs to do the business, and then running a model which is probably somewhere between a third to a quarter of the cost for a grower."

He added that by having economies of scale within one specific sector, The Avolution had been able to get the best ripening and transport rates, amongst other things, that had 'really tweaked down the prices'.

"In the end we've driven the costs down in an overall sense - not just the transaction of paying for the marketer, but also for the service provision," Allen said.

"And growers across the planet like savings - they're always being told to pay more for fertilizer and that kind of jazz . In this sense we have actually removed costs."

Within two and a half years, The Avolution has grown its marketing business from a core of the DFI and SSF avocado packing sheds to more than 20 packing operations across Australia, marketing and supplying 20% of Australia's avocados 12 months of the year and lychees during the summer period.

Over 1.5 million trays of avocados are currently marketed with a sales value of over AUD$40 million (US$31 million).

Since its formation, The Avolution has also secured business with supermarket giants Coles, Woolworths, Costco and Aldi as well as independent retailers, Food Service, QSR and an expanding number of export markets.

With more growers making the switch to The Avolution, the company's aim is to apply the business's successful marketing model to other crops in the future.

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