Has the industry’s emphasis on packaging disconnected the consumer from the product? Is the retailers’ need to neatly package the grapes leading to a lack of innovation and excitement when it comes to merchandising a category which has always been about impulse purchasing.
“Have we lost the art of engaging consumers and do we need to have a rethink?” asks Roger Manning, who manages the European promotions for the South African Table Grape Industry. “Every year or so I go through a thorough analysis of the grape market and my current view is highly critical.”
Grapes are, arguably, seen as one of the more indulgent products in the fresh produce cannon, but is wrapping them up in plastic bags, or sealing them inside misty punnets aiding that indulgent image? “There’s nothing to create any impulse purchasing and it’s very dreary,” says Manning.
And he’s not alone. Capespan’s Martin Dunnett thinks the industry is failing to hit the right note. In the bid to limit consumer handling, for reasons of both hygiene and store safety, he thinks the grape category has become a less customer friendly sector.
“We’ve seen a lot of changes, but would say grapes are now a much more packaged product these days, be it zip-locked bags or punnets. I think over time, the presentation has become much less customer friendly.
“Its become much more positive from the point of view of supermarket wastage, but less so when it comes to presenting produce in its original form.”
They’re not alone in their views, and Manning says most of the retailers are far from happy with the presentation of the product, particularly when it comes to their premium lines.
Dunnett says there is no obvious solution to the packaging issue, but remains optimistic: “There’s still a new bag out there, waiting to be discovered, that will allow us to present grapes in a more natural way.
“We’ve looked at various packs where grapes can be suspended in the bag but it would have to be a premium product because the costs would be very high.”
And in today’s retail environment of low and lower pricing, not many consumers will be tempted to pay through the nose for a product just because it is displayed in a prettier way.
Manning says there is a need to head back to basics. “We need to take another look at the planograms, at the moment they’re just too obvious and boring.”
Another problem with the bags is the fact consumers still pick up the product to see what the fruit is like, and often put bags back, leaving the display in an even bigger mess.
That lack of visibility can sometimes be even worse though, Dunnett says: “When you get condensation on the bag, you can’t even see the product, and if the customer can’t see the grapes then you’ve got a big problem. People want to buy more, but it’s a barrier if you’re not presenting the product in the best way.”
Of course, the main reason for the increased packaging of grapes is fear that customers will slip on loose grapes on the supermarket floor. The zip-lock bags, while also offering customers a higher level of hygiene, also lessen the chance of an errant grape making its way to the shop floor and under the feet of unwary shoppers.
“It’s a big fear for the retailers,” says Dunnett. “All of that has made the merchandising of grapes a high risk environment, and that makes it much more difficult to present the product for what it is.
“A bunch of grapes is a beautiful image, but consumers can’t really pick up a bunch and assess its form.”
Manning, however, says the risk factor on grapes has become overstated: “The incidence of people slipping is not high, it’s very low, and if you’re running a good fresh produce department, then that shouldn’t happen. It’s more likely to happen in a wholesale market, say, than in a modern fresh produce department.”
The size of display boxes is also an area of concern, says Dunnett: “When you have a nine kilo box, it’s a big box, but when it’s a third full it seems empty, and that’s a problem on shelf.”
He says that during times of high prices on grapes, product turns over less quickly and a half-empty box can hang around on shelves for far longer, looking increasingly untidy and unappealing to consumers.
“It’s not so bad during low prices and high turnover times, but when the price per kilo is high, it can look very empty. At times like that it’s better to have a smaller display unit. A smaller carton can be replenished quicker and look better on display, you can rotate stock much faster.”
And while the grapes are being wrapped up and sealed behind plastic bags or boxes, so too has the opportunity for consumers to taste the fruit declined.
Dunnett says the stores are reluctant to allow tasting sessions: “We used to do a lot more in-store tasting sessions, because once you got people tasting, they would buy. But it’s costly and disruptive. The average supermarket doesn’t want a tasting table blocking the aisles.”
However, there is no getting away from the fact that tasting remains one of the most effective merchandising tools for selling such a high impulse item as grapes.
“I think the work we were doing 10 to 15 years ago helped lift grapes into the big league,” says Dunnett, pointing to the fact that tasting sessions also helped raise consumer awareness of the fact that red grapes were now available in seedless form.
Manning agrees that tasting is important, and points to a potential solution on the continent. “In Sweden they have a proportion of the fruit on display to allow consumers to try them - they can help themselves to the grapes.”
So perhaps a simple try-before-you-buy system could help give grapes that extra little nudge and push an already successful category even higher.
GETTING DOWN TO SPECIFICS
“I can see a time when we will be merchandising grapes by variety - such as Muscat flavoured grapes,” says Capespan’s Martin Dunnett.
He points to the work Waitrose has been doing in the grape category. “Waitrose has been very successful, it has had five or six different varieties on shelf at one time.”
He thinks the industry has potential to start breeding grapes for their unusual tastes, or distinctive looks.
“When you ask the growers, they say they can do it, they just didn’t think there way any demand for it. We developed a grape called Musca, a black grape which tastes something like a melon and strawberry.”
He doubts that consumers will ever find the shelves segmented into Thompson, Flame or Superior, but says there may be potential for segmenting and selling grapes under names like ultra-sweet, or super-flavoured.
“It has been done to a certain extent - we have seen Chilean pink muscatel go into Taste the Difference. In the short term that might be the way forward, marketing these luxury varieties under the retailers’ premium banners and aiming to achieve some sort of demand there first.”
But for those who are set to launch their latest quirky grape offer onto the UK market, he has one word of advice. “Whatever the variety, it will have to be grown year-round, you’ve got to have that continuity on shelf.”
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