As supermarket categories go, there are none that warrant the label ‘short-term’ as much as fresh produce.
In this sector, seasons come and go in a matter of months or weeks, prices fluctuate with supply, and the vagaries of the weather can affect size and volume of the product at source as quickly as it can demand in the end market - look at the significant spikes in salad sales that have occurred in the precious few warm days we’ve enjoyed this summer, for example. These forces combine to make our products some of the fastest moving on the shelves.
Marketeers might therefore be forgiven for approaching promoting fruit and vegetables with a similarly fleeting approach, focusing heavily on light-footed, reactive campaigns that are put together on the basis of the immediate goal of selling this year’s crop, but may not return the following season. There are many, many examples of this happening in the fresh produce industry.
While these promotions have their place - such as sampling a product in store to quickly sell unexpectedly large volumes - I would argue that marketing and public relations campaigns in fresh produce must be anything but short term, if we are to foster the loyalty that will keep shoppers coming back to a product season after season.
We have seen this approach work incredibly well with Picota cherries, which we at Foods from Spain have promoted in the UK market for more than a decade. It has helped to build the product up from a relative niche into a significant event on retailers’ calendar. At least one retailer now sells almost half its cherries for the entire year during the short four to five weeks that Picota are on the shelves.
Ironically, it is this incredibly short time on shelf that allows us to build excitement around the Picota cherry, this year promoting its arrival with the strapline ‘Catch them while you can’.
It’s an approach that yields great things in relationships with suppliers and retailers as well as with consumers. The longer you can support your own product with a campaign, the more our supply-chain partners come to understand it. And with this understanding comes a greater willingness to put time and energy into the product, whether that means adding it to retailers’ in-house promotional plans, or investment in better positioning in stores. We will shortly be coming to the end of another season for Picota, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that the long-term investment and commitment to the UK market is continuing to pay off.
Who would have thought that a product that is on UK shelves for the short term could give such a strong illustration of the importance of marketing for the long haul. -
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