One of the toughest challenges facing the potato industry is securing the long-term growth of the category, through new varieties, improved production techniques, better storage and the right marketing strategies. However, to allow this to come together in the future, the sector must secure a ready and willing market by encouraging more of the younger generation to pick potatoes, both now and as they grow older.
The latest report from the Potato Council, Potatoes: A Choice For Life, examines the typical meal repertoires of consumers, including what influences their choice of meals and how they differ throughout their life stages. The study shows that the younger age groups (pre-family and young family) are proportionately the lowest consumers of potatoes, with a 60 per cent and 62 per cent share of meal occasions respectively. This does not stand up well against the later life stages, in which consumption has continued to grow, with significant share increases in the empty nester and retired groups, at 77 per cent and 84 per cent respectively.
So what can the industry do to make this right? The Potato Council has done a sterling job supporting the UK industry, providing best practice advice for growers, making strides in marketing and building solidarity across the sector. Targeting younger consumers is central to some of its latest projects aimed at boosting consumption throughout the year.
Caroline Evans, head of marketing and corporate affairs at the Potato Council, maintains that while household penetration and the average consumption of potatoes remain high, the industry must increase demand from the younger generation to secure the long-term viability of the category. This, she says, is one of the highest hurdles facing the industry as it looks to the future.
“Those in the younger life stages eat significantly fewer potatoes than their parents and, if they carry this behaviour through their life stages, we could see a reduction in demand in the long term,” Evans explains. “The Potato Council works with the supply chain to increase consumption within these groups. We continually seek to better understand our consumers.
“The industry must make the most of opportunities to engage with younger consumers and persuade them to choose potatoes more often,” she continues. “By promoting the positive messages and benefits of potatoes - quick, easy, nutritious and economical - we can sustain demand throughout the life stages.”
The Love Potatoes campaign, run by the Potato Council, has been targeted at these very audiences. This summer, with the help of growers taking part in Me for a Day life swaps, the trade association was able to show mums that potatoes are quick, convenient, healthy and great value for money. Into the autumn, the focus was on the pre-family and flown-the-nest groups in the under-30 age bracket, with a range of quick, one-fork meals inspired by those served in some of the country’s top restaurants.
At the same time, the Potato Council has also been increasing its presence on social media sites, with a dedicated Facebook page and The Potato Girls on Twitter offering a range of hints, cheats, ideas and general potato-inspired tweets.
These seasonal activities have been backed with a campaign to class potatoes as a ‘supercarb’, or a carbohydrate with all the benefits of vegetables, which has been making strides in generating awareness of the potato’s health attributes.
Alongside this, the nationwide Grow Your Own Potatoes project is educating primary schoolchildren about how potatoes grow and their role in a healthy balanced diet. Some 375,000 pupils took part in the project this year alone and feedback from schools, parents and the children themselves has been very positive.
“Industry involvement in our campaigns are crucial to their success,” says Evans. “Not only can they help bring projects to life, such as Grow Your Own Potatoes, but growers are great ambassadors for promoting potatoes to consumers and the media. Me for a Day was indicative of this, whereby growers and consumers each learnt from each other and generated extensive media coverage and awareness. We are looking to recruit more growers from each of the different regions to get involved in marketing activities and help us spread key messages about potatoes.
“Of course, there are other ways to get involved and simple activities such as putting key messages on sacks and packs, promoting recipe ideas and distributing leaflets, and linking with our websites all help to raise awareness - and demand - for potatoes.”
However, it is clear that consumption is heading in the right direction, supported by the Potato Council’s campaigns and boosted by the social climate, which has seen consumers increasingly switching to traditional, affordable staples in the face of the economic downturn.
“Early indications from Potato Council tracking show that the summer campaign has been making significant headway into changing attitudes of our target audiences,” says Evans. “More than 500,000 more mums with young children now think that potatoes are convenient to cook, which is a seven per cent increase since the beginning of the year. There has also been a seven per cent increase in pre-families likely to cook with potatoes mid-week.
“In addition, nearly one million more people across the UK think that potatoes are healthy and more than 500,000 believe that eating fresh potatoes is an important part of achieving a healthy diet.”
But it is not just the trade association that has thrown its weight behind the goal of getting more young people to eat more potatoes, which is a shared target for the industry as a whole.
Albert Barlett is a strong example, having signed up a major Hollywood A-lister to front its new £3m Rooster potato campaign. Marcia Cross, who plays Bree Hodge in the hit US TV show Desperate Housewives, is fronting the campaign aimed at housewives in the 25-54-year-old age bracket, as well as younger consumers.
John Hicks, marketing manager at Albert Bartlett, insists that the campaign was specifically developed with younger consumers in mind and that it should help to boost the potato category as a whole, not just the Rooster brand. “What we have been working on this year has been a lot more maintream,” he explains. “The aim is to engage the Desperate Housewives audience and the 18-25-year-old market, which we have never targeted before.
“The campaign will run until Christmas, but we are five weeks in and we have had some very positive feedback, with good volumes and performance figures showing that young people are buying into the brand. This is important for us and for the potato category in general, because young people are the market of the future - however, it is important to get people in general to buy more potatoes and young people are a key challenge within that.”
These are sentiments shared across the industry, now more than ever if the category is to capitalise on the resurgence in home cooking and a back-to-basics agenda that has taken off since consumers have been rethinking their spending over the last 18 months.
Douglas Bell, general manager of Greenvale Dunnes, believes that educating consumers will be key to attracting young shoppers to the category, with a focus on convenience and health. “For me, these are the most important things,” he says. “The message has been put out by the Potato Council for years, but we have to make sure that it is really getting through to consumers.
“The focus on varieties is a big part of what we can achieve as a business, so we are looking to bring in new and more exciting varieties to boost consumption. And we are working with our retail partners to make sure we have pack sizes and formats right and range is structured well.
“The way it is at the moment you really have to push yourself to the front because people are being pickier about what they buy and shopping week to week - only buying what they need.”
TRADE READY TO EXCHANGE IDEAS AT BRITISH POTATO 2009
The industry will make its way to Harrogate for British Potato 2009 next week, when growers, suppliers and retailers will come together to plot the best way forward for the supply chain.
The biennial meeting at The Yorkshire Event Centre will offer a number of opportunities for potato players, including a set of seminars on the Potato Council stand that will relay research-related findings and developments from the UK’s leading authorities on potatoes.
Caroline Evans, head of marketing and corporate affairs at the Potato Council, told FPJ that the event was “unmissable” for potato players, bringing together representatives from all sectors. “BP2009 is where the industry does business,” she says. “BP2009 also provides an opportunity for levy payers [to the Council] to learn about, understand and discuss the range of activities that are taking place on their behalf, all of which are aimed at improving competitiveness and increasing demand. There is a packed seminar programme and the Potato Council’s team of experts will be on hand to discuss priorities and demonstrate the value and resources to benefit your business. With marketing insights, technical seminars, new online resources and much more, for anyone involved in the potato industry, BP2009 should be an integral part of their business.”
Here, FPJ gives a quick run-through of some of the highlights from the seminars.
Marketing mission
Caroline Evans will discuss how businesses can take advantage of emerging markets by understanding consumer behaviour. New research into the foodservice market identifies opportunities for the industry to increase competitiveness in the sector, in which potatoes are estimated to be worth £2.51 billion.
Grower link-ups
The Potato Council’s Business Improvement programme has shown that marketable yield is the factor that does most to decide profit from loss. Cambridge University Farm’s (CUF) David Firman will discuss how to modify agronomy to maximise the marketable fraction of a crop. This is the focus of the Potato Council’s Grower Collaborations project, which has taken decades of Potato Council-funded research at CUF and put it into practice on five prominent farms over the past three seasons.
Blackleg threat
Dr Gerry Saddler, head of diagnostics and analytical services at Science and Advice from Scottish Agriculture, will guide growers through a major new disease threat to crop production. Scientists have discovered a new bacterial pathogen in the genus, Dickeya, that causes plants to wilt and rotting in tubers. Symptoms are almost indistinguishable from traditional blackleg (Pectobacterium atrosepticum), but the disease appears to be more aggressive and causes damage in a wider range of conditions and at lower bacterial loadings. The pathogen has only been identified as a separate species in the last six months and has yet to be formally named.
PCN policy
Potato Council head of research and development Mike Storey will discuss the new potato cyst nematode (PCN) Control Directive that comes into force in July and will look at fresh survey data showing that more than 60 per cent of potato land in England and Wales is infested. The directive means greater intensity of sampling, making the pest a real challenge and threat to the sustainability of production. This session will look at a fresh focus to keep PCN under control.
Energy savings
New research findings suggest potato growers could make huge savings on storage costs. Data from 33 monitored potato stores shows average energy use was 78kWh per tonne - equivalent to £5/t. However, the most efficient stores out-performed the poorest by an average of up to four times, and up to 10 times on occasions. Adrian Cunnington of Sutton Bridge Experimental Unit will discuss ways to reduce energy use and to save costs.
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