Total volume sales of English apples are up 40 per cent so far this season, and last week alone, sales were 70 per cent higher year-on-year. Sainsbury’s has put its considerable weight behind the English crop and for the last two weeks bought more than half of the volume sold, leaving competitors trailing in its wake.
Top-fruit buyer Neil Gibson reports sales of almost 700t of Cox in the last fortnight. In the week ending October 1, AC Neilsen data gave the chain a whopping 56 per cent of UK Cox sales. Cox sales at Sainsbury’s are tracking over 200 per cent year-on-year, according to the latest data available.
Gibson’s stated aim is to grow sales of English top fruit by 20 per cent over the course of this season. And as red dessert apple sales were 100 per cent higher year-on-year, even prior to the burst of in-store activity, the portents were good.
They are even better now that the Jamie Oliver effect has kicked in and Union Jack festooned Sainsbury’s top-fruit shelves build on his undoubted pulling power.
TV ads are being supported in-store by plentiful displays of English Cox, Conference, which is 100 per cent up year-on-year and Gala, which is for the first time a 42-day import-free zone. Braeburn, once it comes fully on stream, will also have a 100 per cent English run.
“The only way to block English all together was to go 100 per cent on Gala and Conference and this is the first year we have had the volume available to achieve that for a prolonged spell,” says Gibson. “We had three 100 per cent English lines last year and that has doubled in 2005.”
Sainsbury’s is going to great lengths to ensure that this campaign is characterised by consistent in-store displays and product knowledge. Merchandising teams visited each of the 428 stores in the JS chain on September 28-29 to implement the English block planogram and to put up the supporting point-of-sale material. On the same days, in a new cross-merchandising initiative, Cox polybag dollies were placed in a display adjacent to an aisle end of Taste the Difference sausages, to encourage shoppers to Try Something New Today and cook the recipe being knocked up by Jamie Oliver in the latest TV ad. The polybags were also on display in secondary space, on a “Produce Top 4” aisle-end alongside polybags of English Conference pears, as part of a two for £2 offer.
The generic planogram was designed around an average Sainsbury’s store size, but produce managers were instructed to increase the shelf-space given to English top fruit where they had capacity. Individuals and teams have been made responsible and accountable for each aspect of the merchandising activity and after two and four weeks, every one of the stores will be revisited, compliance checked and any missing or damaged pos replaced.
The merchandising teams will offer support to store managers throughout the run. And the ‘six-week period’ should perhaps be prefixed with “at least”, because the situation will be re-assessed at the end of the predetermined time frame. Whatever the decision in mid-November, Gibson has committed to maintain a strong English presence, alongside imported fruit, until March next year.
“We’re seeing a revolution in the English apple industry,” says Gibson. “We have plenty of fruit and it is of extremely high quality, and added to that, in-store compliance has been very good.”
Sainsbury’s has aimed a tongue-in-cheek “Non merci” at French apples, but the long-term goal involves growth of the whole category. “We feel that if we can get behind English at the beginning of the season, we can build some real momentum for the entire category. This helps every source, but we hope that customers who buy into the English range continue to buy English throughout the season,” adds Gibson.
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