Back-to-school is an increasingly important time of year for the fresh produce industry and its retail grocery partners, as more and more parents look for convenient, healthy options for their kids’ lunches.

Take Wonderful Citrus, owner of the Halos brand of easy-peel mandarins. One traditional problem with back-to-school for the company, said Dave Rooke, senior vice president of sales, is that California and Texas citrus production peaks in the winter, not in August when kids are going back to school.

When summer comes around, consumers are more often thinking of stone fruit, cherries, grapes and other fruits that peak in the warm months.

That said, Halos are still top of mind for many Wonderful customers as they get their kids ready for back-to-school, Rooke said.

To remedy the summer supply/demand imbalance, Wonderful has invested heavily in recent years in bolstering its counter-seasonal supplies in South Africa, Chile and, to a less extent, Peru and Uruguay.

The happy result, Rooke said, is that Wonderful expects to have abundant supplies of high-quality Southern Hemisphere Halos for back-to-school this year.

“We’re excited. Back-to-school is an important component of our Halos program, and we’ve worked very hard in recent years on our counter-seasonal supply base. It’s a growth area, for sure.”

Supplies are expected to be so good this year, Wonderful will, for the first time ever, have point-of-sale materials, centered around an image of a child reaching for a mandarin, at retail.

“We typically don’t get that opportunity to use P-O-S in the summer because the sets are shrunken,” Rooke said. “We believe this could be a differentiator. With P-O-S, you typically see a sales lift of 18%.”

The new marketing push comes at a time when school districts, parent and kids continue to demand for convenient, healthy options like easy-peelers.

Last year, for instance, Wonderful was able to convince some regional school systems to switch from conventional oranges, which are harder to peel, to Halos.

“They’re sweet, seedless, easy to peel, they make for a great snack or lunch item, and they’re an excellent source of Vitamin C,” Rooke said. “Kids and parents love them.”

This article is an excerpt from the July 2024 issue of Supermarket Perimeter. You can read the entire Back-to-school feature and more in the digital edition here.