Although not renowned for its glorious summers, the UK has seen two of the worst seasons for salad crops in the last two years.
In what insiders are describing as a “disaster”, the last quarter has seen erratic weather conditions from North to South, leaving demand in the gutter and growers watching new plantings fail in soggy conditions.
The summer made a promising start but, as light levels dipped in July, so did growers’ hopes of a good salad season to make up for last year’s poor crop.
Sales in the lettuce sector have been particularly slow, with July marking the start of the downturn, August nearly coming to a full-on halt and demand in September picking up slightly.
“After the children go back to school in September, we usually see an increase in sales of about 15 per cent,” says one watercress and baby leaf grower. “Stability returns and you see usual buying patterns return. September is also historically good because consumers are trying to squeeze the last bit of summer out of the season and there is usually a surge in seasonal eating. But sales in general are deflated and lower than they should be at this time of year.”
Furthermore, commitment to sales from the major multiples was low this summer for the lettuce sector. Insiders believe that supermarkets did not place enough orders to get stock on the shelf when the weather was good, because they wanted to avoid additional wastage. “There was no commitment to fill the shelves unless the weather was constantly nice,” explains one grower. “Because the weather was so changeable, there would be three to four days of sun and not enough lettuce on the shelves to supply demand. The stock-keeping units were not replenished quick enough. It was very frustrating.”
Quality-wise, watercress survived the season well as its high resistance to disease meant the crop did not suffer as much as other leafy salads. But baby leaf crops were not so lucky and suffered from higher levels of mildew and bacterial issues. In particular, red chard caused growers difficulties and became more problematic towards the end of the summer.
The English baby leaf and wholehead lettuce season is set to come to an early end and suppliers are predicting a shortage over the next couple of weeks before Spanish crop comes on the scene. Baby leaf salad has been especially short and the fact there are still another two weeks until the start of the Spanish crop is making the industry nervous.
Cold nights and continual rainfall have caused bad breakdowns in a lot of wholehead lettuce varieties and, although the lettuce looks perfect from the outside, some lettuce on the marketplace has been rotten from the inside. Both coarse and fine frisée have suffered from this, causing problems for foodservice suppliers in particular. And despite quality issues, the price of frisée has rocketed compared to last year, increasing by almost 40p a head in some circles.
But despite the industry taking a beating from the weather this season, innovation is still creeping through. The Watercress Company supplied Waitrose with a new mixed bag of green and red watercress this summer. The seasonal line, which is currently exclusive to Waitrose, has been received very well by consumers, and The Watercress Company hopes to introduce the mix to more supermarkets next year.
However, even if the weather takes a turn for the better now, the change will not be big enough to breathe life back into salad sales, and the general feeling in the industry is that another poor summer season is well and truly over.
Tomatoes have suffered from low demand and inconsistent quality in the last quarter, and prices have been set low. The Dutch offer is now coming to an end and the English season was low on volume, due to weather conditions.
Dutch peppers have also been a problem, as low light levels in the Netherlands have caused quality issues and supply has been very tight. The trade is now beginning to see the first of the Spanish crop but, disappointingly, product coming over has a dull colour and bumpy skin.
The shortage of both English and Mexican spring onions on the marketplace has caused waves and some suppliers have been bringing product in from Germany at further expense. Insiders are hoping to start importing the Spanish crop into the UK earlier than usual and, so far, the Spanish season looks promising.
But the main casualty this quarter was the organic salad offer and insiders fear that “even the price of gold has its limit” for customers. Some suppliers have reported a loss in sales of up to 15 per cent for organic salad products this summer and many customers are delisting the products altogether because of high prices.
Meanwhile, cucumber sales have remained steady. English product has not particularly suffered from the weather conditions, although the season is finishing slightly earlier in some parts of the country. Spanish cues are on the horizon and word is that the industry is pushing forward the ‘naked’ cucumber rather than plastic-wrapped in the UK, to come in line with the rest of Europe.
The fact that it is not just the UK that is experiencing problems with contrary weather conditions is a concern for the salad industry. “Spanish weather has been erratic, with as much as 13mm of rain falling in one-and-a-half hours recently, and fields are flooded in some parts of the country. That doesn’t bode well for the short-term supply of salads,” reveals one insider.
“It has been as low as 4°C in Germany, as well as Romania, which is usually in the mid-20°Cs, and countries that are mostly self-sufficient will be looking to import product. The temperatures are weird all over Europe; it is a Europe-wide problem. I think there will be shortages, which will mean more competition and higher prices.
“Traditionally, exporting to the UK has been a lucrative market, but this will not be the case. It is going to be an interesting winter,” he added.
PDM PRODUCE WOKS THIS WAY
Dull and wet weather has hampered sales for the second summer running and these conditions have blunted the performance of the salads sector this year, says Philip Maddocks, managing director of lettuce grower PDM Produce.
I started the company in 1991 after developing a passion for fresh produce working in the UK and in the US. My grandfather had started growing brassicas in the same part of Shropshire in the 1930s, but I knew I wanted to do something different. PDM Produce specialises in growing romaine, iceberg, Little Gem and spinach for multiple retail, foodservice, wholesale and processors.
To address the fragility of the salads category, we have spent the past two years developing a new branded offer that builds in some weather resistance and, we hope, some added stability to bagged salads. The team worked together to identify a gap in the market. By plugging it, we are grasping an opportunity to make a difference to the bagged salad category by increasing taste and reducing waste. Our concept really can lessen the impact of the British weather too, as it positions baby leaves as an ingredient to use in cooked dishes, not exclusively as a salad option.
We conducted extensive consumer research and had some fantastic feedback. This refined our thinking and we learned a great deal about the consumer’s perceptions of baby leaf salads. From this position, we created the concept of Wok or Not, a bagged salad of baby leaves that can be consumed either as a salad or in a stir-fry.
The bagged salad market is fairly stable but there is certainly room for a new, strong brand. We believe that Wok or Not can really push the bagged salad category forward and spark the creation of a new sector for quick-cook leaves.
Our first line, Wok or Not ‘Textured & Mild’, launches into The Co-op across the country from early October. This blend contains red Russian kale, red chard, pak choi and spinach.
The brand will continue to evolve and we are currently working on a number of additional blends. The advantage of being the grower is that all you need is at your fingertips; there are lots of exciting baby leaf varieties coming on to the market and we are experimenting with more than 100.
This is our first branded launch and we are very excited. We are confident about adding incremental growth, as a key finding from the research was that of those questioned, 30 per cent said they would include Wok or Not in their weekly shop in addition to existing bagged salad purchases.
Our choice of baby leaf varieties is driven by our desire to deliver taste and, through this, reduce domestic waste. The durability of the leaves in cooking is crucial in maintaining taste and delivering texture and we have worked with home economists to explore how Wok or Not performs in a variety of dishes.
Selected recipes are shown on the back of the bag; each pack will show a salad recipe and another for a stir-fry, so that consumers are presented with inspiration for hot or cold meal choices.
A key message to the consumer is that best results are achieved by adding the leaves for the last 60 seconds of the cooking process, and this will be central in our planned press advertising campaign. We will be investing £500,000 in Wok or Not in the first year and, in addition to the press campaign, this will include promotional activity, consumer competitions, tastings and online recipes.
Because we have not had a proper summer for the past two years, demand for our core salad offering has been down by at least 20 per cent when compared to normal summer sales. Wok or Not could be a very important part of PDM’s future, as it gives us some control of the situation and it can build year-round demand within the bagged salads category.
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