Dynamic Opportunities To Grow Consumption
By Jim Prevor, Editor-in-Chief, Produce Business
Produce is an interesting category. It is presented as one department to the consumer but, in fact, is broken up into four very different offers:
1) Traditional Whole Produce
These are items that have always been sold in produce and in varieties that are either traditional or, if new, are not changed in significant ways that consumers recognize. So Red Delicious apples, Iceberg lettuce, baking potatoes, etc., remain constant in shoppers’ eyes — even though minor changes in these varieties are always occurring.
2) New Variety Whole Produce
These items look similar to traditional items, but they have different or enhanced flavor profiles or shapes. Examples include everything from Yukon Gold potatoes to Honeycrisp apples to Sun World’s Sable Seedless grapes to Driscoll’s Victoria blackberry to the Grapery’s Witch Fingers grapes.
3) Items that are Unfamiliar to Many Consumers
Even though relatively high-volume items, such as mangos, gain status from great popularity with particular facets of society, the majority of Americans have never purchased a mango. Then, of course, there is a massive range of specialty items available from companies such as Frieda’s and Melissa’s that the vast majority of Americans have never sampled, much less purchased.
4) Blends, Cuts, Assortments, Flavorings and Packed Items
Each year at The New York Produce Show and Conference, The Joe Nucci Award for Product Innovation in Service of Expanding Consumption of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables is presented at a general session. Winning products have included: Curry & Company’s Vidalia Sweet Carrot Program (2011), Ocean Mist Farm’s Season & Steam Brussels Sprouts (2012), Kerry Kitchen Gardens Micro Herbs (2013), Foxy’s BroccoLeaf (2014), and Love Beets Smoky-BBQ Shredded Beets (2015). Combine items such as these with other innovations, including from Joe Nucci’s company, Mann Packing, where they have released items such as broccoli coleslaw and broccolini, and one sees a whole industry in itself.
Although produce as a category does have 98 percent penetration, as Anne-Marie Roerink and Rick Stein point out in their “Produce Consumption and Preparation” research, if you look at produce through the lens of the four separate offers listed above, the penetration is much lower and thus the opportunity for growth more dynamic.
The snacking, smoothies, juicing and value-added opportunities mentioned by the researchers are certainly real. We would also add that we see a bigger opportunity in culinary changes: The stereotypical American diet is centered around a big chunk of protein, with produce served as side dishes such as a baked potato and green beans. Perhaps some additional produce comes into play if the meal starts off with a salad.
Yet many cultures, such as those in Asia and the Mediterranean, didn’t have access to such large servings of protein, so they worked on developing culinary techniques to enhance the taste and flavor of fresh produce. In the end, you have plant-centric dishes where the protein was used sparingly as a flavoring — think stir-fry vegetables with a little bit of steak or seafood.
With public health and environmental experts both pushing for more plant-based meals, it is possible that the giant opportunity for produce is not the obvious trends but a more subtle pro-plant-based food movement that could alter consumption trends substantially.
Roerink and Stein were able to tease out key obstacles to consumers taking this path. One is cost, and just as retailers have to rethink their approach to consumers in light of the four different offers being made simultaneously, the industry needs to rethink its financial offer to consumers. The other issue is quality. Getting consumers to buy fresh-cut items, proprietary varieties, etc., can indeed run into these two obstacles.
Yet, the produce industry is not the only industry to face these issues. California Pizza Kitchen has a diverse menu, and it is in the interest of the restaurant to have consumers try a wide variety of items.
Yet California Pizza Kitchen found a dilemma among consumers who were interested in trying new items but were afraid of wasting money if they didn’t like the items. So the chain offers a guarantee: If you try a new item and don’t like it, the restaurant will substitute your “old favorite” for free.
As Roerink and Stein point out, one response to consumer concern over price may be to offer more deals (BOGOs, etc.). It also may be that concerns over cost and quality are really expressions of value concerns. Will the fresh-cut fruit be sweet? Will I waste lots of produce because of last-minute plan changes that lead me to eat out?
It would probably make sense for a retailer to do a test in a few stores to see exactly how much produce is returned if a store offers a product replacement guarantee. PMA has funded a number of efforts to enhance produce consumption; perhaps with the help of FMI, both organizations could chip in to help test whether reducing consumer anxiety as to the possible waste of fresh produce would move the needle on consumption.