Best opportunity to grow produce sales seen in snacks
Best opportunity to grow produce sales seen in snacks
According to the Produce for Better Health Foundation, the key for retailers to sell more fruits and vegetables is to pitch them as snacks because consumers are already eating lots of fruit at breakfast while losing interest in cooking vegetable side dishes at dinnertime.
This was just one of the messages from PBH's 2005 State of the Plate Research on-line seminar designed to help retailers boost fresh produce sales.
More than 70 percent of consumers surveyed by PBH indicated that snacking is when they are most likely to eat more produce, Bryant Wynes, director of retail marketing for PBH, said during the Sept. 27 webinar. The group's data show that single men and women and also young families are not getting enough servings of fruits and vegetables, so this snack approach to these demographics offers the biggest opportunity for growing sales.
Fruits are popular for breakfast and vegetables are served primarily at dinner, although researchers are seeing a decline in side dishes cooked at home, said Kathy Hoy, PBH's nutrition research manager. When asked when consumers would eat more fruits and vegetables, most replied at snack time and the fewest people said at breakfast.
PBH also suggested that retailers promote and advertise more produce, more often. Consumers said that price promotion and coupons were the best ways to buy more fruits and vegetables. Other methods were posting simple recipes and staging in-store sampling. Sampling increases sales and "removes the mystery" of tasting different fruits and vegetables, said Mr. Wynes, a former senior marketing manager for Giant Foods Inc.
By encouraging shoppers to try a variety of produce, supermarkets can boost sales. Dr. Hoy said that the 5 A Day the Color Way program has been shown to increase consumption and translate into higher sales for produce departments.
Retailers need to make a commitment to provide nutrition information and use produce departments as portals for dispensing the health message. Only 35 percent of the shoppers that responded to a recent poll said that their current store does an excellent or good job of providing health information, said Mr. Wynes. Supermarkets are becoming more aware of the need to relate and promote health information, and many have contacted PBH for guidance on posting such data on their web sites.
At a result, supermarkets could watch sales increase by more than $4 million per store if they encourage consumers to meet the current daily serving recommendations.
"Nutrition marketing makes good business sense in today's environment, Mr. Wynes said.
This was just one of the messages from PBH's 2005 State of the Plate Research on-line seminar designed to help retailers boost fresh produce sales.
More than 70 percent of consumers surveyed by PBH indicated that snacking is when they are most likely to eat more produce, Bryant Wynes, director of retail marketing for PBH, said during the Sept. 27 webinar. The group's data show that single men and women and also young families are not getting enough servings of fruits and vegetables, so this snack approach to these demographics offers the biggest opportunity for growing sales.
Fruits are popular for breakfast and vegetables are served primarily at dinner, although researchers are seeing a decline in side dishes cooked at home, said Kathy Hoy, PBH's nutrition research manager. When asked when consumers would eat more fruits and vegetables, most replied at snack time and the fewest people said at breakfast.
PBH also suggested that retailers promote and advertise more produce, more often. Consumers said that price promotion and coupons were the best ways to buy more fruits and vegetables. Other methods were posting simple recipes and staging in-store sampling. Sampling increases sales and "removes the mystery" of tasting different fruits and vegetables, said Mr. Wynes, a former senior marketing manager for Giant Foods Inc.
By encouraging shoppers to try a variety of produce, supermarkets can boost sales. Dr. Hoy said that the 5 A Day the Color Way program has been shown to increase consumption and translate into higher sales for produce departments.
Retailers need to make a commitment to provide nutrition information and use produce departments as portals for dispensing the health message. Only 35 percent of the shoppers that responded to a recent poll said that their current store does an excellent or good job of providing health information, said Mr. Wynes. Supermarkets are becoming more aware of the need to relate and promote health information, and many have contacted PBH for guidance on posting such data on their web sites.
At a result, supermarkets could watch sales increase by more than $4 million per store if they encourage consumers to meet the current daily serving recommendations.
"Nutrition marketing makes good business sense in today's environment, Mr. Wynes said.
