Both Sainsbury’s and Morrisons have outstripped Tesco in early sales of English-grown new-season Discovery apples, according to official English Apples & Pears figures.
Sainsbury’s sold more than double the volume of the market leader in the first three months of the season, shifting 242 tonnes of the variety, compared to Tesco’s 120t. More surprising, however, is the performance of Morrisons, which perhaps illustrated its greater interest in the English crop this year by selling 177t in the same period.
Morrisons has been criticised in recent seasons for a lack of support for the domestic crop, but had intimated a desire to increase sales before the campaign began - the early signs are that its actions will reflect its words.
Sainsbury’s is a traditionally strong performer on home-grown apples and has begun this season in the same vein. “We are very pleased with the first few weeks’ performance,” top-fruit buyer Neil Gibson told freshinfo. “We worked closely with our growers to plan the volumes coming in and promotions ran around that. The fruit has sold very well.
“Discovery hasn’t got great shelf life, but it eats well when it is freshly picked, so the key from a retailer’s perspective is to move it quickly through store. We have a generic red dessert bag, which the Discovery slotted into and, as it was therefore not a brand new line on shelf, the season started with a bit of pace behind it. We have also had the line on promotion linked with Conference, and it has sold pretty well.
“It is going to be an interesting year for the English crop, as more retailers seem to be getting behind it,” he added.
Asda, which like Morrisons has also attracted a degree of criticism in recent seasons, sold 43t of Discovery in the three-week period, according to the figures. Waitrose weighed in with a strong 56t and Somerfield also outpunched its weight, with 89t of sales.
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