Thanks to their “superfood” status, sweet potatoes aren’t just for Thanksgiving and Christmas anymore. Retailers who tap into this surging category’s year-round possibilities will reap rich rewards.
In the post-COVID world, consumers want their fresh produce in packaging where it hasn’t been touched while on the store shelf, said Crystal Chavez, marketing coordinator of Santa Maria, Calif.-based Gold Coast Packing.
Temperature-controlled industrial REIT and logistics solutions provider Lineage Logistics LLC has launched Lineage Fresh, a service that provides storage options for fresh produce suppliers, importers and grocers.
Refrigerated salad dressing brand Litehouse Inc. has launched a football-themed marketing campaign called “Litehouse in the House” to boost sales and brand awareness through February 2023.
One of the main differences between the produce departments of yesterday and today, said Anne-Marie Roerink, principal of San Antonio-based 210 Analytics, is the enormous surge in packaged and value-added products.
Retail fresh produce is at a crucial juncture in its history, said Bruce Peterson, president of Bentonville, Ark.-based Peterson Insights Inc. How it responds to this moment will play a huge role in determining whether it continues to enjoy its coveted status.
In its most recent Feedback Group national grocery shopper survey, conducted in May 2022 with more than 1,200 instore shoppers, Lake Success, N.Y.-based Retail Feedback Group found that produce is the second highest rated department, in terms of satisfaction, across all channels, with a rating of 4.29 on a five-point scale and with 51% of those surveyed rating it a five.
The plant-based food industry has exploded in the past decade, but COVID caused or, at the least, revealed some challenges to the category’s future growth. To help shed some light on where it’s headed, Arlington, Va.-based FMI – The Food Industry Association has extended its highly successful “Power of” series of studies to include plant-based.
RSS
