Morrisons has taken the plaudits for increasing its sales of English top fruit, but Asda has been told it still has work to do.
Figures released by English Apples & Pears (EAP) show that Morrisons has increased its share from 19.6 per cent of the market for UK top fruit to 21.2 per cent, representing a huge overtrade on Morrisons’ grocery market share of 11.3 per cent.
EAP chief executive Adrian Barlow praised Morrisons for its performance, but spoke less warmly of Asda, whose share has fallen back from 13.5 per cent last year to 11 per cent this season, according to the figures. “There is the potential for Asda to increase that,” he said. “The product is available for them to increase their share and I have very little doubt they intend to sell more English.”
Samantha Mills, top-fruit buyer at the Leeds-based retailer, emphasised her team’s commitment to the English industry. “We are focusing on English apples and pears and trying to do as much as we can,” she told FPJ.
“The whole northern hemisphere season is more difficult this year in terms of sizing and pricing, but we are certainly focused on trying to increase our share. We are trying to maintain a balance between costings and retails, looking at good grower returns, but we still have our strong ethic on low prices to our customers.”
Mills said she is looking forward to the January trading period for top fruit and said Asda would come strong in the new year. “We are certainly not out of the race yet,” she said. “We have increased our share on Gala and Conference and we have got some great offers in the pipeline. Look out for the end of January.”
Elsewhere on the high street, Sainsbury’s continues to lead the charge with a significant overtrade on UK top fruit. However, its share has fallen back from 29.8 per cent last year to
25 per cent this season as it suffers the after-effects of its former supplier SGT switching allegiance to Tesco this season.
That deal is also credited with helping Tesco grow its share from 18 per cent to 24.6 per cent in a year and while Barlow said Tesco deserves “lots of compliments” for the achievement, its share still falls short of the 30.7 per cent it enjoys in total grocery.
Overall, Barlow reported that the total English crop has defied pre-season forecasts and bucked the Europe-wide trend for lower volume. Cox supply is almost identical to last season at 29,000 tonnes and volume sales to UK supermarkets at 4 December was 2.5 per cent up on the same point last season.
“Considering the season started two weeks later than in 2009, this is a remarkable performance,” said Barlow. “It reflects the continuing upsurge we are seeing in demand for local produce and we are very keen to take full advantage.”
Meanwhile, Gala has packed out to 20 per cent more Class I fruit than last season’s record at 27,000t, and although Conference pear output in continental Europe is down, UK Class I Conference sales in November were 700t higher than a year ago.
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