Sainsbury’s kicked off this season’s in-store promotion of English top fruit on Wednesday and will back up the increased shelf capacity with a concerted TV and newspaper consumer advertising campaign.
The chain, which sold 28 per cent of home-grown Cox last season, far out-punching its weight in the UK market overall (17 per cent of all apple sales), has redoubled its efforts to support the domestic industry in 2006/7.
Cox apples and Conference pears have been moved to the front plinth in all stores and polybags are on offer at 2-for-£2, as Sainsbury’s attempts to encourage customers to multibuy and shop across the fixture for different varieties. The prime spot in-store will be held for a minimum of two weeks and other offers include 2-for-£3 on tray packs of both Bramley and lesser-known dessert variety Ingrid Marie, and 2-for-£2.50 on red dessert polybags.
“In the first four weeks of last season’s promotion, we sold twice as many English apples as Tesco,” said top-fruit buyer Neil Gibson. “It is clearly going to be a different season this year, but we want to start it off in a big way.”
Three growers - Robert Rendall, Clive Gotham and Richard Greenwood - appear on shelf barkers across the country, as Sainsbury’s personalises the category in its stores for the first time.
“Last year, 40 per cent of our apple sales were English over a 12-week period and we aim to increase that to 50 per cent this season,” said Gibson.
“As new orchards continue to come on-stream and we have increased access to fruit, both our Royal Gala and Conference will be 100 per cent English for 12 weeks, as opposed to six weeks last year.”
He said that the multibuy approach is being funded by Sainsbury’s, rather than growers. “It’s about getting the initial interest going. [Multibuys are] what has enabled us to push apples and pears to a more prominent position in-store and it is also an important offer to draw attention to our ads in The Sun, The Daily Express, The Independent and The Mirror [which ran for the first time on Thursday].
“Sainsbury’s has changed its strategy on promotion this year and in produce there has been 50 per cent less promotional activity year-on-year. That will ensure that the English top-fruit promotion will have an even bigger impact.”
