At last month’s British Leafy Salads Association conference, Bakkavör’s marketing manager Alan Richardson made an impassioned plea to members to get behind the generic PR campaign for the product or risk losing its position in the market.
So it will come as good news to leafy salads suppliers that an attempt to support year-round interest in the product has been mounted. The new Winter Salads campaign looks to sustain interest in leafy salads throughout the period in which British product is not available. During the winter months, 95 per cent of leafy salad sold in the UK is grown in Spain, running from the end of the British season through to overlap with the start of the UK season in early summer the following year. The campaign, run by Red Communications, has been instigated by a new business unit, Natural Salads Direct. The initiative is a part of a wider focus by established grower and supplier Das International (originally Direct Abemar Supply) and Natural & Salads (Abemar SAT).
Das was created in 1999 to provide a UK-based logistics and marketing operation for the Spanish growing operation then named Abemar SAT - now Natural & Salads. The company has grown and now has a fully integrated supply chain from growers to its customers across all the major supermarkets.
Talking the talk (“we are custodians and guardians of the land we work with”), the business is ready to walk the walk and has created a campaign that it believes will help drive purchase frequency for a product that has already reached 92 per cent market penetration.
Simon Allgood, account manager for the new business unit, explains: “The main purpose of the Winter Salads campaign is to drive simple communication streams using a multi-disciplinary approach including trade and consumer press, but also to take advantage of social media platforms to truly engage with consumers and those in the industry. We want to be able to help the consumer to find other uses for salads during the winter months and enable them to add to their normal veg repertoire.
“If we can increase demand during the winter months, this not only benefits us as a business but most importantly benefits the total market and category within the UK. We could have just engaged in promoting our business, but that would have been very short-termist.”
The campaign has taken on the considerable challenge of promoting warm winter salads using the key products - iceberg, Romaine or Cos and Little Gem lettuce as well as celery - perhaps not a traditional winter option. To take on the task, Natural Salads Direct has employed the services of celebrity chef Johnnie Mountain to front the campaign. The Great British Menu star, who has just opened up the opulent English Pig restaurant in London, has a reputation for innovation and has created a variety of recipes to aid the uptake of warm winter salads. Mountain was brought on board to “build credibility quickly” for the campaign and attract attention. A talkative, down-to-earth figure, Mountain appeared relaxed and genuinely passionate as he talked about his salad concoctions at a press event at his new establishment last month.
“One of the obstacles we have to overcome with the consumer is the idea of using lettuce, for example, in a hot meal,” Allgood adds. “Johnnie has allowed us to conceptualise this in a really simple, straightforward but easy to replicate way for the consumer. For us, his involvement has been incredibly important to help build our story around winter salads, tying in all the commercial elements such as market research. But critically, it has also helped to keep our feet firmly on the ground because Johnnie is looking at what we produce from a consumption perspective - how will a person eat this, what works, what doesn’t.”
Das managing director Ian Dennis says the company has the size and scale to push such an ambitious, long-term campaign. Natural & Salads grows on some 2,000 hectares of the 3,000ha of land it owns in Murcia, centred around Lorca, and it pioneered growing iceberg lettuce when the Spanish side of the business was set up in 1983. The company now grows a full range of lettuce as well as growing broccoli, celery and melons on its land. Alongside this, it has a seedhouse (STM), water provision (Seispro), farming (PHL) and a transport and logistical service (CLS), creating an integrated supply chain.
Dennis says this model works well in dealing with the pressure of supplying the UK supermarkets. “Obviously, with the current financial climate there is pressure on all aspects of the supply chain, which brings about numerous challenges,” he says. “Recent moves by the supermarkets to create more direct supply routes fit perfectly with our business model and aspirations. It takes us back to the original purpose and vision of our business as a direct route to market from our grower-based business. Our biggest challenge is to ensure that the correct associations are made about our business and to remind everyone in the industry that we are the grower.”
Allgood is realistic about the outcome of the campaign. “Our expectations are quite modest; we are not intending to re-invent the wheel but that said, we hope that by supporting the category during the winter months we can complement other salads promotions and activities at other times of the year,” he says. “Our goals are really simple, to increase the opportunities for the purchase of salads. If we don’t start to engage with the consumer, the leafy salads industry could end up a considerable way behind other categories within fresh produce.”
COMEXA PUSHES NEW PRODUCE BRAND
Comexa Europa is a salad and vegetable exporter that has been established for six years. The company, based in Spain, has strong partnerships with co-operatives across Murcia and around Almería. Working alongside business partner Juan Menoyo, former New Covent Garden Market importer Graham Cousins gives an insight into the business.
Can you describe the business set up?
We work together with our own private growers in Almería and this amounts to 17 hectares of round tomatoes, eight vine, eight cherry, six cherry plum, 16ha of aubergine and 90ha of peppers. We also have a joint venture in Morocco, which enables us to offer a wider range of products through our sister company Agroatlas/Agafay du Souss, which has more than 80ha of cherry tomatoes and as much as 300ha more available.
What are you trying to convey with the Comexa brand?
A new, dynamicand proactive business. We want to be at the forefront of people’s minds when they are ordering fresh produce. The aim for Comexa over the past few years was to find individual, high-class growers that would grow specifically for us where we would be recognised by the introduction of our own brand in the marketplace.We now have a brand that gives the customer quality product with each delivery.
How important is your background in UK wholesale?
I previously worked in the wholesale markets for 16 years and have a complete understanding of the requirements of UK wholesalers. We are able to solve any issues with deliveries or product discrepancies a lot easier by handling them in a manner that suits all parties. If we were just a normal Spanish exporter that loads product with no market understanding, then the relationship is normally destroyed after several product loading issues, whether quality or quantity issues.
What do you see as the future for Comexa?
We want to be the brand leader in the fresh produce market with our customers and their customers insisting on only buying Comexa. This will only be achieved by working directly alongside growers and giving our customers exactly what they require with each order. We are continually looking for, and speaking to, new growers to develop our product portfolio while continuing to ensure that Comexa quality is being sustained. One of our aims that we have achieved and are looking to build on is to create direct growing areas for individual companies, linked with our producers so that they have their own areas of production.
No comments yet