The Food Marketing Institute’s recent “Power of Produce” shopper study highlights the importance of promoting fresh fruits as ingredients for juice and smoothie blends in order to appeal to the growing crowd of millennial shoppers who juice at home. Stemilt’s Fresh Blenders, which launched last October, are five-pound grab-and-go pouch bags of apples that do just that by promoting the use of apples as a natural start to any juice or smoothie drink made at home.

The FMI study of 1,458 U.S. consumers found that over the past two years, 27 percent of consumers are buying more produce specifically for juicing. Consumers with young children are fueling the juicing and smoothie trend in order to ensure the entire family gets more servings of fresh fruits each day, while women in their 30s and specialty and organic shoppers are also participating in making juice and smoothies at home.

According to Roger Pepperl, Stemilt's marketing director, apples are a natural starter ingredient for juice and smoothie blends. They add frothiness, valuable nutrients like fiber and vitamin C, and juice and natural sugars to add sweetness to any drink.

“Not only did the FMI study find that people are buying more fruits with juicing/smoothies in mind, but also that one in three consumers use fruits and vegetables for juicing and making smoothies,” Pepperl said in a press release. “Apples are a great base ingredient to any smoothie and our Fresh Blenders pouch bags offer a unique product to help retailers appeal directly to this consumer. They sell intent to the shopper by clearly stating what the apples inside are for.”   

The Fresh Blenders package is a five-pound bag of value-grade apples and comes in sweet or tart flavors and multiple varieties for each. The resealable pouch bag is long and narrow — like a blender — and designed to stand up vertically for easy display at retail and in the refrigerator at home.

“Fresh Blenders is a bright and fun pack that ships in a self-stacking display ready carton for building a quick display at retail. It’s an ideal package for refrigerated endcap displays or in building a juicing/smoothie destination in produce to promote alongside other popular ingredients for blends. The best part about Fresh Blenders is that it’s a pack that offers convenience at a value price to one of the best produce purchasing consumer groups,” Pepperl said in the release.

The value-grade fruit inside each bag of Fresh Blenders is ideal for blends, as color percentages and shape do not matter when making a juice or smoothie recipe like they do when eating the apple fresh. A five-pound bag can make a week’s worth of juice or smoothies for most consumers, Pepperl added.

Stemilt packs Fresh Blenders in both sweet and tart flavors. The varieties available for sweet are Gala, Fuji, Red Delicious and Golden Delicious. The varieties available as tart are Braeburn, Granny Smith and 'Pink Lady' brand apples. On the back of every bag is a Stemilt recipe that fits the flavor profile of the fruit inside. The front of the bag features the Mathison family, who own and operate Stemilt, in order to help tie the fruit back to the family farm it came from.

“Fresh Blenders is an ideal product to capture sales with the health-conscious millennial crowd of shoppers as they continue to develop purchasing habits in the produce department. It’s important for retailers to appeal to this crowd, and Fresh Blenders is a great value pack to do just that,” said Pepperl.

Stemilt will feature Fresh Blenders apples at its booth, No. 2453, at PMA Fresh Summit this month in Atlanta.