A recent Mintel study has highlighted a worrying drop in the number of UK households buying fresh produce, writes Laura Tomlinson, a director at PamLloyd PR.
Sixteen per cent of respondents admit that they have cut back in the past year, almost a quarter of those being from lower-income families. Mintel predominantly attributes the curb in demand to the double-whammy of the credit crunch alongside rising prices – but is there more to it than this?
Yes, rising prices are a very real problem. But beyond this I think there is a bigger issue at play, namely motivation to buy. A number of categories in the sector are suffering from an image problem. Most people understand that they should be eating more produce, but they’re swayed by sexier products on the supermarket shelves. To me, this helps explain why sales of expensive Innocent smoothies are rocketing while smoothie ingredients are struggling.
Comedienne, Roisin Conaty may have hit the nail on the head recently when she quipped about the Government’s annual price hikes on cigarettes – ostensibly to deter smokers: “No,' she argues. 'When you raise the price of cigarettes all you’re doing is making poor people not buy fruit.”
Bagged salad is an example of a fresh product that has managed to break out through impressive product and packaging innovation. For many fresh produce lines, this kind of innovation is easier said than done however, and until image is tackled, sales won’t budge.
So where does this image problem come from? I think it is hard to deny the impact of childhood experiences. I remember that I wasn’t allowed to leave the table until I’d finished my broccoli, and spent many hours sitting at the table, tears of disgust and injustice running down my face. That kind of early encounter stays with you.
As we grow older we understand the health proposition, but like anything we know we ‘should’ do, we need more to motivate us to do it. In short, the health message on its own just isn’t enough.
The marketing challenge is considerable as aiming to achieve large scale behaviour change. Jeffrey Dunn, a former Coca-Cola president who now markets baby carrots in the States, suggests: “We must change the game. We can help solve the obesity crisis by stealing junk food’s playbook, by creating passion for produce, by becoming demand creators, not just growers and processors.”
We need to work more closely with the Department of Health to create a more powerful and consistent banner campaign for produce. It’s been done before: think ‘Got Milk?’ The marketing landscape has changed considerably in recent years and now, perhaps more than ever, campaigns to promote individual crops can have significant impact, even without the budgets of grocery brands.
While print and TV still have their place, social and other digital channels are often a more effective means of engaging a younger target demographic. And engagement really is key. To engage them we shouldn’t be afraid to be different and crucially, to take a few more risks. It is only then that we will start to achieve a long term change in buyer behaviour.
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