Asda is looking to revamp its tomato range with the launch of an expanded and innovative offer.
The retailer, working with supplier English Village Salads, has altered its Extra Special tomatoes, dropping most of the range into the standard Asda brand and introducing four new products.
EVS has also been working with UK growers to enable Asda to be the first UK retailer to be able to offer British tomatoes year-round.
Barbara Bray, product manager for tomatoes, said: “The tomatoes are exclusive to Asda, we’re extending the UK season and offering consumers more choice.”
The tomatoes are being produced in a controlled glasshouse environment in a three-year trial project by Mill Nurseries, near Hull. Director Rob de Lang said £1.6 million has been invested in developing a glasshouse to grow a UK winter crop.
“We spent around £200,000 on the lighting system alone, which has more than 3,500 sodium lights. With our system, we can pretty much guarantee consistent high-quality product,” he said.
Asda will be offering two winter tomatoes, a traditional round tomato and a sweet plum tomato. The plum variety will be on sale under the Extra Special brand and the round tomato will be sold at a premium, said Kelly Colrein, marketing manager with EVS.
“There will be a price differential to normal tomatoes, because of the way it is grown and the limited volume. We’ll be using shelf barkers to communicate that to consumers,” she said.
“The British message can get lost, but we’re trying to push it more and make it more fashionable.”
The tomatoes, which will officially be launched in mid-November, will be available in 188 Asda stores.
Colrein said EVS had carried out consumer research into the tomato sector, which led it to take a new look at the Extra Special range.
“We found the market had changed an awful lot, and speciality tomatoes, which used to be niche, were now massive. As a result we found that some of those products that might once have been considered special were now considered fairly standard.”
Large vine, small vine and baby plum tomatoes have been dropped down to a standard offer, leaving the sweet plum tomato as the only ES offer available.
“We’re taking a bit of a risk having only one product, but we were not prepared to sell products as Extra Special if they were not,” said Colrein.
EVS is working on four new tomatoes to be launched with ES branding next May. “The new products will expand the whole Asda tomato range from 11 products to 15. We’re hoping that by putting in the new ES tomatoes, we’ll be driving volume in that sector and bring value back in as well.”
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