Soft-fruit sales values have pipped apples and bananas to the post as the leading fruits in terms of sales value for the first time.
According to Kantar Worldpanel data for 2011, berries have achieved a market share of 18.4 per cent of the £4.16bn UK fruit market.
Professor David Hughes, Emeritus professor of food marketing at Imperial College London said: “Even in recessionary times berries are an affordable treat for most families and unlike many other fruits are easy to handle and eat by adults and children. Add to this the context of the consumers increased understanding of the benefits of berries in a healthy diet and the excellent in-store position that retailers offer and this has established over time a very strong market presence for berries which is shown in the excellent sales growth over the past few years.”
The season so far has been another exceptional season for sales with double digit sales growth leading berries to outperform all other grocery sectors with six consecutive months of expenditure and volume growth in 2011. It is the first year that the berry category has been the largest category in the fruit sector.
Managing director of Berry Gardens, Nick Marston, said: “The current excellent market position for berries has been achieved through hard work, cooperation, investment across the supply chain and listening to the consumer. As the Kantar data demonstrates working together has achieved 92 percent sales growth in seven years with UK sales for 2011 estimated at £764 million.”
