Since Sainsbury’s launched its First for Fresh Initiative last year, sales have confirmed what the company had long suspected: customers want to see locally grown potatoes in their local stores. With a large-scale cross-country network in place, Greenvale AP was selected as the project manager for the initiative and this relationship is set to continue, says Sainsbury’s senior category buyer, John Maylam, full of praise for Greenvale and its unwavering support from growers.
“Local sourcing is definitely something the customers want so our challenge is to make that happen,” says Maylam. “We have had very good feedback since we launched the First for Fresh (FFF) initiative last year. It has had great press and sales of loose new potatoes have gone up according to our reports. Other supermarkets will be offering local potatoes but I think we are ahead of the market with FFF.”
Asda has also witnessed a dramatic increase in customer requests for local produce in the last couple of years, which Mary Ling, the company’s local produce marketing manager, attributes to an increase in product awareness aided by the media coverage and support for local sourcing offered by celebrity chefs, such as Jamie Oliver and Anthony Worall Thompson. “I think the increase is partly weather-driven and also the fact that we are more dedicated to meeting customer demand, so if we haven’t had the crop available one year we will try and uprise the crop for the next year,” she adds. “We have 12 local areas and for each of these areas the demand for local product is really big. Customers are asking for local potatoes all the time.”
In addition, the initiative Asda has introduced to educate its shop-floor staff has been making a significant impact on the attitude to local sourcing. “The staff are being trained to answer the usual kind of questions customers ask, like what products are in season and what to do with them and the stores can also then track their requests and feed them back to us,” Ling says.
Somerfield’s buyer Pat Lees agrees the concept of locality has been gaining momentum year-on-year, “Within each locality, for example Cornwall, they expect Cornish new potatoes and our store managers tell us they are champing at the bit for them until they arrive.” This understanding has prompted Lees to implement changes to her sourcing strategy. “Going back a few years ago we used to bring in potatoes from Egypt and Cyprus but we decided we wouldn’t do that anymore, for locality as well as price reasons. It makes sense to support British since importing is much more expensive anyway.” However, consumers are usually more than willing to pay the premium for the new potatoes at the start of the season and beyond, if necessary, she says. Traditionally the season has started with prices around £1.99, dropping after the first couple of weeks. However, for the last four years prices have tended to stay higher, and with the increase in market competition, Lees expects this trend to continue.
Tesco has also demonstrated national loyalty with regards to sourcing. “We now offer British new potatoes right the way through the year,” says category buyer, Roy Maynard. “Historically we would have finished the new potatoes in October and started imports but we have been working with our growers and they are growing good quality product that can go into cold store and be sold right through to March. We have significantly taken imports back in favour of British product. The only import window for new potatoes is from March to May before the Cornish potatoes start.”
In baking potatoes, Tesco’s transition to British product has been even more dramatic. “We don’t import any baking potatoes at all now,” says Maynard. “This is quite a breakthrough considering five or six years ago during July and August we would have imported many thousands of tonnes from abroad. Now we are actually starting the seasons earlier and we have bridged the gap in the British calendar.”
At Sainsbury’s, regional sourcing has been making a big impact in-store with the use of visual aids and printed liners, making the concept clear to customers. “We are always looking for opportunities to promote locality,” says Maylam.
Tesco is also championing the concept in a big way this year, according to Maynard. “Where we have launched the local potatoes we have really announced the arrival of the season with some in-store theatre.” The chain has been launching local potatoes into Cornwall, Pembrokeshire, Kent, Scotland and East Anglia for some time but this year the regional ‘branding’ has received particular focus, in the form of tray-liners, floor stickers, recipe dishes, grower pictorials and on-pack provenance. “In each regional store we carry liners which will have the Scottish or Welsh flag or reflect the county of East Anglia or Cornwall etc. Having the names and farms of the growers is great for them and the customers because they want to know exactly where the potatoes are coming from. We have also had a mobile consumer cooking unit in store car parks to cook up some recipes using the local produce. This is of course done in conjunction with the growers who take great pride in their products.”
Sainsbury’s FFF Initiative is still encompassing the same 11 regions as last year, with a depot in all the main regions that recognise and demand local potatoes. This has enabled the company to satisfy its commitment to maintaining the freshness that is its selling point. “The potatoes never travel more than just a few miles down the road,” says Maylam. “They are often harvested and delivered directly by the growers to the store. They turn up at the front of the store and the delivery is brought in. It is good for customers to see them and the growers can talk to customers and take a look at their potatoes on show.”
As well as featuring the local varieties in their respective stores, Sainbury’s also offers loose or pre-packed Jersey Royals and four branded regional packs which are circulated through the store’s central distribution process. However, the preference for locality has an impact on the rest of the category offer, says Maylam. “Where local potatoes are featured we only stock the Jersey Royals in the pre-pack format, rather than loose.”
All the varieties have a distinct following in their respective regions, he says. And although Jersey Royals and Cornish Earlies have a branded status, which perhaps makes them better-known outside of their region, Maylam dismisses the need for any further branding of other varieties. “It is very difficult to brand a loose potato but they are all highlighted in store and clearly labelled with attractive liners.”
Tesco’s decision to circulate regional varieties more widely has also been met with a good response. “What we have done in recent years is where we have the opportunity to have Cornish potatoes early, we have successfully managed to sell them, marketed as British product, up to the Midlands and even the northern counties,” says Maynard. “This has enabled us to seriously cut back on imports, so we have actually increased our Cornish quantities at the expense of imports.”
Maynard hastens to add that this has not been to the detriment of Jersey Royals, however. “We have always had a Jersey Royal offer and an imported new potato but now we have Jersey Royal and another British potato so we are still giving the customer a choice.” All stores carry a variety of weights and pack formats of loose, pre-pack and baby potatoes to satisfy all demands. Yet, Maynard claims there has been a country-wide move towards pre-packed offerings in recent years.
At the same time, Lees recognises how difficult it can be for regional suppliers in such a competitive market given the short window of opportunity available to them. “The weather makes such a difference,” she says. “This year, for instance, Jersey was two weeks late, which had an impact on volume. But Cornwall had some great weather so the season started early, which is the exact opposite of last year when Jersey had great weather. There used to be two weeks with just Jersey but there is now more overlap.” Given the uncertainty of availability, it is important to have back-up supplies from other sources in the event of unavoidable hindrances to harvests, she says. “Even if we had a plan to use British, if there was an issue with quality or pricing we would have to take that on board and consider other sources. But the Somerfield ethos is to have British product in British stores.”
Similarly, sometimes it is necessary to supplement specific regional produce with other British sources. However, most consumers seem to respond well to this, Lees says. “As long as we clearly label the produce so consumers know what they are buying they are fine.” In addition, while Somerfield continues to trial up and coming varieties, she suspects the consumers are not greatly aware of differences between them and it is the origin of the potatoes which informs their purchasing decisions.
Maynard agrees that the search for new and improved varieties with a better eating and keeping quality is an essential part of category maintenance. However, this is always done with caution and varieties are only introduced following significant research in collaboration with the growers and tasting tests have confirmed a demand among the supermarket’s customers, he says. “We are using the growers because at the end of the day they are the ones who really know their crop and they have good ideas and can direct us in making these decisions.”
Despite appreciating the success of the FFP project, Maylam admits it has proved challenging in some respects. “As a supermarket we are set up for national distribution so we don’t automatically have the infrastructure at the micro level. We are in the process of working out how to make it bigger and better, looking at the logistics and statistics of how to manage and supply all areas but still remain local. What’s going on at the moment is a very controlled process and we need to be completely comfortable with that before we can take it to a bigger level. But the sales for what we are doing now point towards the opportunity to expand the project.”
Maynard is equally optimistic about the future of local sourcing. “Regional sourcing will be part of our procedure going forward and we will build on the success we have had with potatoes and will be looking to expand it to other products such as soft fruit in the future.”
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