The UK raspberry crop is being promoted aggressively this week and next in High Street multiples as the supply chain tries to avoid offer out-stripping demand.
“There is very good availability of fruit at the moment and the crop is flushing,” said The Summerfruit Company’s Scott Woolford. “At the moment there doesn’t seem to be any oversupply but most of the supermarkets are promoting very aggressively by increasing pack weight. As a result, we are fairly confident that fruit should move well through stores until we are over the peak in about 10 days time.”
The Summerfruit Company has so far been supplying fruit from Kent, but expects volumes to be available from Scotland next week. “Raspberry sales are good and are growing year on year," said Woolford. "We are definitely seeing more consumers switching into raspberries.”
Marketing desk KG Fruits started its promotional efforts last weekend. “There are loads of raspberries at the moment as we have a substantial maincrop,” explained the grower-owned group’s managing director Nick Marston. “I would say at the moment sales are not keeping up with production, as tends to happen at this time of year. It really takes promotion to get the fruit moving.”
Industry body British Summer Fruits is also forecasting an abundance of fruit. “There is a very big crop of raspberries but there is also a lot of promotion at the supermarkets coinciding with the peak of the season,” explained chairman of the group, Laurence Olins. Two punnets for £3 and 250g punnets are being used by the multiples to push more fruit through the system this year, he said.
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