Fiji Kava is primarily focused on the US market which is a top priority for the company as it has more commercial opportunities compared with other markets in terms of kava related products.
According to CEO Anthony Noble they had rebranded their corporate business in the US and acquired another beverage based company in Portland, Oregon a couple of weeks ago.
“We’re expanding our business fast in the US, we think the US is the biggest opportunity for us on the medicinal kava product side. “Our OTC products, we think there’s a big opportunity for those in the US and we think we’ve got one of the best kava products for drinking kava and recreational use as well.
“We’re working with companies in the beverage space and in the “ready to drink shot” space to try to expand the product formats that we can sell in the US.”
He said unfortunately, in Australia with the way things had been regulated at the moment only powdered kava could be sold.
“Ready to drink kava, even just pure water and kava, which was allowed under the standard is now prohibited with this review of the standard so the commercial opportunity in Australia has been significantly limited by what the government’s trying to limit use to just specific people.
“The US the market is much more mature. “We have a number of ‘slim-line can’ ready to drink beverages on the market, dietary shots range.
“We think about 200 to 300 kava bars are open, selling kava in cocktail form and social occasion form and in the tanoa as well.
“We just think that that market is much more mature, much more open and that the demand and the understanding of kava is much better there.”
However despite the limitations set by the standard Mr Noble said they had a record quarter in Australia.
“But we think the opportunity in the future in the US as an order of magnitude bigger than what we can do in Australia, particularly with the regulations still being quite restrictive and a little bit colloquial.
“I think the Chinese market for us has been quite challenging as there has been some issues around being an Australian-Fijian company.
“They see the Australian made on a lot of our OTC products and China and Australia in the trade sense are not as open to each other as they have been.
“We’re making some steps at the moment to move our manufacturing of our finished product OTC to Douglas Pharmaceuticals here in Fiji that allow us to get a ‘Made in Fiji’ label products and we think that as a ‘Made in Fiji’ Medicinal Products, we’re going to have much more access to that Chinese market in future.
“But the opportunity in China now compared to what it was five years ago for complementary medicines is drastically reduced due to the trade tensions.”
He said kava did have a big opportunity in China however price was very important.
“There’s a lot of people in China who are making kava, probably not in an ethical way, probably sourcing whatever part of the plant they can find from whatever region they can find with very poor quality control.
“There’s a lot of low priced, kava extract and drinking kava being made in China so it will be a challenging market to attack.
“Really, for us the focus is winning in Australia as much as we can and growing our business there.
“But the USA that’s where we’re going to be focusing most of what we’re doing.” Fiji Kava has successfully imported kava into Australia under the pilot program. “We were a little bit disappointed with how long everything took to finally go through,” said Mr Noble.
“And I think there were some issues in terms of communication with companies being clear about what the requirements would be and when things would happen, but we were delighted that it finally did happen.
“Obviously, it was announced shortly after the pilot program opened that the Food Standards Australia, New Zealand would review the food standards for kava, and do that urgently.
“I think that was a mis-timed review, which led to a lot of uncertainty, particularly around possible changes to packaging information that would have to be given out.
“Still some uncertainty around things such as nutritional information, which some of the food standards say should not be on kava, some people are putting food information panels on there.”
He said more clarity was needed for businesses on how to label products and how to comply with the permit system.
In terms of Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and the actual import and aqueous, the quarantine service, the permit system has worked well as stated by Mr Noble.
“It’s been timely, and the product seems to be getting cleared through quarantine quite quickly and quite efficiently.
“So I think at the high level, the consultation probably had some lessons to learn in future about better communication.
“But in terms of the process for kava coming in, we’re finding that now to be quite smooth.”
Copyright © 2022 Fiji Times Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2022 Fiji Times Limited. All Rights Reserved.