he salad category has grown once again this quarter, with a 6.6 per cent rise to £1.7 billion annually, according to Kantar Worldpanel figures to 23 December 2012.

Volumes for the period have risen year on year by 3.9 per cent and tonnage across the category hit 652,000t, showing a definite recovery on the damp and dull summer that affected output across the board.

All the major multiples have enjoyed growth year on year, but have performed behind the market average, while Asda still undertrades – an opportunity Kantar estimates to be worth some £19 million. A spokesman for the retailer says: “When you take a closer look at the figures we perform well in sales of salad items such as peppers, tomatoes, spring onions, lettuces, and cucumbers. Our customers are simply reaching for core salad items rather than pre-prepared.”

The past quarter has also seen cucumbers enjoy a robust market. “We have seen some strong pricing driven by structural change in mainland Spain,” one industry insider told FPJ. “I think what has happened is that the speculative element among the grower base in Spain has opted to grow something different this year. As a result we have seen a strong start to the new year.”

Although the cold snap last week suppressed sales a little, it served to put the keen demand in better balance with the reduced supply. “Demand is picking up again now the weather has improved,” says the insider. “And it means we can be optimistic for a very strong February.”

Victoria Trading brings some 70-80 per cent of the total Canary Islands cucumber crop into the UK. The company’s general manager, Andrew Zerpa-Falcon, says: “I think the strong market will continue throughout February and then we will have to see how quickly northern Europe comes on stream.”

The Canary Islands have a sizeable chunk of the tomato market too and Zerpa-Falcon says Victoria Trading has found good demand for cherry vine, baby plum and standard vine tomatoes over the past quarter, which coincides with the start of the season from the islands. “We will have good availability until June for the smaller sizes of round tomatoes favoured by supermarkets, which are really the engine room of the tomato category. And speciality tomatoes from the Canary Islands will continue until the beginning of May.”

Mainland Spain dominates the supply picture for iceberg lettuce through the autumn and winter and into the spring. A complicated start to the season thanks to flooding in major production areas that was reported in the last salads category quarter in October, has developed into a complicated season overall.

Javier Soto, sector president for iceberg lettuce at the producer-exporters’ organisation Proexport in Murcia, says: “There has been disruption to planting cycles that affected the first three months of the season leading to a shortage of product right up to the beginning of January. Even the seed houses were affected, which has meant a lack of seedlings coming through for transplant.”

Although clearly some producers and some regions have suffered more than others, the general picture has been one of tight supplies. Soto is keen to emphasise that recent milder weather in the region – with daytime temperatures above 200C and night-time lows around 100C – have helped production to catch up.

Nor will it be long before UK peppers are back in production. Gary Taylor of Valley Grown Nurseries reports one of the slowest starts to the season thanks to poor light levels – the lowest in 14 years – during January. “We are looking at starting probably around the third week of March,” says Taylor. He foresees the move toward sweeter and niche types dominating the market in the UK. “The trend in niche super-sweet varieties such as small super-sweet peppers and the long pointy Ramiro will continue. In the Netherlands, production of these types was up three to five per cent last year, but in the UK it was up 15 per cent year on year and I think we will see it rise by a similar amount this year.”

Elsewhere, in the prepared leafy salads sector Florette reports a flourish at the end of 2012. The category had a strong finish to the year, with sales up five per cent, and the bagged-salad specialist said it outperformed the category with sales up seven per cent. —

DUROC'S NEW LOOK

Duroc, a Moroccan tomato supplier, has reinvented itself with a new branding to reflect its strengths as a producer, writes Kathy Hammond

Moroccan cherry tomato supplier Duroc unveiled its new look this week.

Having expanded into the international market and become part of the Delassus group, the organisation wants to use new branding to highlight its strengths. These, the company says, are that it is a fully integrated, single producer growing only cherry tomatoes in just one region of Morocco – Souss in Agadir – for just one market: the UK.

A spokeswoman said: “Duroc is renewing its visual identity by adopting a new logo to reflect better its strengths and potential. This graphic design demonstrates the opening up of the company to its marketplace, its ability to listen and its capacity for adaptability. Its simplicity is powerful and it will make an instant and strong impression on our partners.”

The company, which operates under the slogan ‘Empowered by nature’, grows all its tomatoes on a hydroponic closed-loop system and recovers all of its excess water.

It has a culture of innovation that it has been nurturing over the past five years to ensure that there is continual improvement in yield, product quality and consumer satisfaction.

Duroc is a family business and has some 350ha under production and claims to be the largest grower in the Mediterranean basin. It can supply year round. All of its 25,000 tonnes of production are handled in a single packhouse in the heart of the region. In 2010 the company, which employs some 2,800 people, won a national award for the best employer in Morocco.

The Delassus Group already has a reputation in the UK for its citrus, most notably its clementines, which have a long season. The spokeswoman said: “We start around 15 October and we can supply until the end of March.

“More than 80 per cent of the exports of these products come from the group’s own orchards. Young plantations of Nadorcott are coming on stream this year and the company expects production to reach its peak next season. Delassus also exports grapes to the UK in June and July. —

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