The good news story that has been the stonefruit category over the past couple of years has hit the buffers somewhat after a summer of sales decline.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the driving force for the 3.6 per cent value and six per cent volume fall [Kantar Worldpanel, 52 w/e 29 January 2017] has been category darling cherries, which have suffered an 11.4 per cent collapse in value sales over the past year.
Across the category, 2016 was a year to forget from a sales point of view. According to Jo Mumford, marketing manager at leading supplier Chingford Fruit, a major reason for the sluggish performance in the period was poor growth during the northern hemisphere season, driven by shoppers buying far less volume per trip and fewer consumers shopping the fixture.
The sector particularly suffered from competition from other categories last summer. “During the key northern hemisphere period, spend shifted to berries, tying in with lower availability during this period,” Mumford explains. “Citrus also took spend gains from stonefruit, with this category continuing to exhibit robust growth throughout.”
Within the individual products, deflation has hit spend hard on plums, according to Mumford, while peach volumes have suffered from a downturn in trips to the fixture. Nectarines were particularly hard hit, with 13.1 per cent volume decline, but at least that came with the caveat that price inflation of 16.1 per cent put spend on a positive foothold.
Sales may have been through the wringer, but it’s not all bad news, with the market returning to healthy levels of spend and additional shoppers bolstering the category from November 2016, suggesting the downturn may be temporary. Apricot sales also saw positive value and volume growth, up seven and 3.5 per cent respectively as customer numbers grew.
There are also optimistic noises coming from the South African stonefruit industry. According to a spokesman, during the South African season overall sales in the big four retailers grew, with Tesco and Sainsbury’s noted for their strong performance.
Indeed, Sainsbury’s was named by industry body Hortgro as its Stonefruit Retailer of the Year for its efforts during the 2015-16 season, when it more than doubled its sales of stonefruit from the country.
“Sainsbury’s has worked extremely hard to develop sales of stonefruit during the winter season and has achieved really impressive growth of more than 100 per cent year on year,” says Jacques du Preez, general manager for trade and markets at Hortgro.
On the wholesale markets, the biggest issue at present is the depleted availability of apricots, good quality cherries and red flesh plums, according to Justin Tanner from Premier Fruits at New Covent Garden Market.
Between January and March a wide range of South African plum varieties go through the market, such as Pioneer, Sapphire, Black Diamond, Black Splendour and Laetitia. “The market is performing well in terms of stonefruit sales, and sale prices are up on last year for plums at £8-10 for a 5kg box,” Tanner points out. “Nectarines cost £11.50 for a 5kg box and peaches are £24 for a 5kg box.”
Paul Wise, a salesman at Gilgrove on New Covent Garden, adds that stonefruit quality is good right now, but supply is a little short. Citing popular variety Flavorking as an example, Wise says supplies have been in short supply and wholesalers have had to take Chilean produce to meet demand. A further down side of that has been poor quality from the South America source, he says.
