The Potato Council believes its new strategy for the fresh retail sector could be worth an additional £8.7 million a year for the industry.
Setting out its plans for a new way for retailers to market potatoes last week, the Potato Council said once the project is implemented it will be worth a 1p price rise per kilogramme of potatoes, which equates to some £8.7 million over the course of a year.
Research for the project, which started over three years ago, found that 85 per cent of UK shoppers want to understand more about potato varieties and nine out of 10 would back a simpler classification system to help them choose.
The Potato Council’s head of marketing, Caroline Evans, said: “This strategy will build a stronger connection between consumers and potatoes; educating them by highlighting taste and texture with simple, shopper-led signposting.”
The levy company says consumers struggle to describe potatoes by taste, and that by changing packaging to include pictures of meals specific varieties are best for, sales will increase to sustain the category long term.
The project aims to use packaging to identify all varieties as one of three groups: fluffy, salad and smooth. “We have been working on this project for several years and have a co-operative of suppliers and retailers backing us,” said head of communications Sharon Hall.
“This is an opportunity to get consumers making purchases based on more than just size or visual appearance but on taste and variety; we’ve found that people are more likely to pay more for a good potato as it’s a cheap food group so the potential rewards are massive”.
The project will be launched during Potato Week (1-7 October) with a national ad campaign predicted to reach an audience of 10 million, 100 regional sampling days and the distribution of 500,000 leaflets.
Evans concluded: “This has the potential to drive up the value of the industry and by working together as one we can show consumers there is more to potatoes.”
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