Strawberries and raspberries still dominate the berry sector and continue to show growth in sales, says Andy Izzard, account manager at Well-pict, Budgens soft-fruit category manager. “The category also includes blueberries, blackberries and currants of all description. Blueberries in particular are now featuring as a regular purchase, with demand buoyed up by the useful press coverage on their health giving benefits coinciding with an availability that now just about covers 52 weeks.”
The main focus of Budgens’ berry offer throughout the summer is UK strawberries. Budgens is totally dedicated to sourcing UK-grown soft fruit and its summer campaign will ensure that all strawberries are sourced from the UK throughout the summer season. “Supplementary to the focus on strawberries is the planned drive to increase volumes of UK raspberries by 100 per cent against last year,” says Danny Grover, senior fruit buyer, Budgens. “A clear promotional strategy is planned to focus on driving raspberry sales when good volumes of English Tulameen are available. Again, all of Budgens raspberries will be sourced from the UK during the summer.”
Elsanta, Everest, Tamar and Camarosa made up 95 per cent of all berry supplies to the UK in 2002, says Grover, and now each of these is being challenged by new varieties that offer improved marketing opportunities. “This year we will be offering nine different strawberry varieties ensuring that each new alternative is a real improvement for the consumer. While Ventana from Spain has been good for growers, producing early yields, it has not been a big hit with consumers.”
Efficient planning and sourcing play a major role in the customer’s decision process, as does the effectiveness and positioning of co-ordinated and consistent promotional messages in stores across the country. “Bold, prominent displays coupled with informative and easily recognisable POS and backed up by strong promotions support further growth within the berry category. Budgens has invested in five-tier stands, bold, strawberry-embossed livery and summerfruit POS in its stores to ensure UK soft fruits are visible in store,” says Grover.
There is no category within fresh fruit that is as dependent on good weather conditions as the berry sector, Izzard continues. A fine, warm, sunny day encourages consumers to enjoy the alfresco lifestyle and in good weather we can see berry sales increase at least 10-fold.
Each autumn the berry industry reviews the current year and sees continual year-on-year growth. “This is a pattern reflected in Budgens’ soft fruit sales and there are two reasons for this,” says Izzard. “Berries have luxury associations and consumers are prepared to spend increasing amounts of money on this type of purchase and berry quality through the season has increased significantly, providing a 52-week supply of consistently high quality.”
“The winter months have seen huge growth in sales, due to the availability of improved quality fruit,” says Grover. “Budgens has supplies of strawberry varieties Honor and Tamar during the winter season, along with raspberries sourced from Spain which offer improved quality and shelf life than airfreighted South American crop. During the Iberian season Budgens has been able to move away from Camarosa and while there is still some way to go before Camarosa is replaced completely, it is expected that in 2005, 90 per cent of Budgens’ Spanish berries will be in better tasting and better looking varieties such as Honor, Patience, Sabrosa and Festival. The UK spring and summer season starts with predominantly Elsanta from glasshouse and tunnels. An area where Budgens still expects to see good growth is in the late summer and autumn months - where competitors will mainly be stocking Everest, Budgens growers are switching to better quality varieties.”
Further developments in winter soft fruit, including the extension of northern hemisphere sources such as Spain, will assist in attracting further growth through an increased value proposition in the winter months.
There is still plenty of room for expansion in the soft fruit category, says Izzard. “The increased summer volumes are making English soft fruit a day-to-day purchase and developments in varieties with enhanced eating quality have made the category more appealing.”
Grover says: “Our position as a high quality convenience store is ideally placed to expand the berry market where berry sales are both an impulse and a regular purchase. Consistency of product leads to high levels of repeat sales. While there have been a few step changes in quality by better use of quality growers, it is the continual upgrading of standard industry punnet formats that are leading to increased levels of customer satisfaction and hence repeat sales. Consistency of quality in relatively standard format punnets is still one of the main drivers in the berry sector rather than novel punnets or fruit formats.”
While improved quality has driven sales up over the past few years there is still scope to improve consistency throughout the year, says Izzard. “One disappointing berry purchase will delay repeat purchase. While growers invest heavily in new varieties and improved handling facilities, it is chains like Budgens that match this investment with good store facilities for extending shelf life and providing visual displays that will drive further growth opportunities.”
Changes to pesticide legislation throughout Europe have produced some significant difficulties in finding conventional means of pest and disease control. “Virtually the whole of Budgens production is now grown under glass and high tunnels, avoiding many of the disease problems associated with rainfall. Most European growers and some in the Middle East are looking for better means of integrated crop production, reducing the reliance on pesticides,” says Izzard.
We are no closer to having berries that keep significantly longer, Grover concludes. “In fact, as Budgens moves towards better-eating berries, shelf-life problems may arise. So improvements in logistics and timing of picks to meet demand are becoming more critical. In many of our stores we have good shelf displays that create rapid turnover and provide some protection to berries from their main problem of high temperatures.”
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