Celebrating outstanding achievement in the marketing of fresh fruit, vegetables and flowers in Australia and New Zealand, the PMA-Produce Plus Marketer of the Year Award 2017 will be presented at the inaugural Hort Connections conference and trade show in Adelaide on 15-17 May.

The Marketer of the Year Award is open to any individual or team member who has shown excellence in the marketing of fresh fruit, vegetables or flowers in Australia or New Zealand in the past year.

Nominees can be from any part of the value chain – whether it be a seed producer marketing its offering to growers, a packaging company marketing its solutions to distributors, or a retailer marketing its products to consumers.

Freshmax Group marketing manager, Matthew Crouch, scooped the 2016 award for his work on the ‘Sumo Citrus brand awareness campaign’, using traditional and digital media as well as in-store tastings, to raise awareness and increase consumption of the Freshmax proprietary citrus.

Previous winners include the Harris Farm Markets team for its ‘Imperfect Picks’ campaign (2015); OneHarvest for the launch of its Love Beets range (2014); Lisa Cork for her ‘Love Kumara’ rebranding project for Delta Produce (2013); and Sarah McRae at Freshmax NZ for her marketing of the Mahana Red Apple in New Zealand (2012).                                                

“This is a fantastic opportunity for marketers to gain industry-wide recognition, not only for their businesses and their products, but also for their personal efforts,” said Renee Harrison, Marketing Manager of PMA A-NZ.

“Marketing plays such a vital role throughout the value chain and we’ve enjoyed covering some excellent examples of fresh fruit and vegetable marketing in Produce Plus over this past year,” said Gabrielle Easter, Editor of Produce Plus. “Competition for this award has been increasing each year and we’re looking forward to receiving some great nominations for the 2017 Marketer of the Year Award.”

Entries close 31 March 2017

Self-nominations and nominations by third parties are welcome. Post nominations for the 2017 Marketer of the Year Award at: www.pma-anz.com/MOYA