Britain's fruit and vegetable market was valued at £7.6 billion in 2003 by market analysts Keynote, but has grown by just 3.9 per cent since 1999, with green vegetables and potatoes in particular holding back what would otherwise have been a healthy increase in sales driven mainly by fresh fruit.
This, Keynote suggests, has been driven by the growing demand for convenience - since most fruit takes little or no preparation to eat - and by the growing awareness of the health benefits of fruit consumption, aided by government-led campaigns such as the one promoting the consumption of five pieces of fruit or vegetables a day.
But these trends are only likely to drive growth so far, the report suggests. With most consumers in the UK now buying the vast majority of their fresh fruit and vegetables from the supermarket, chains such as Tesco and J Sainsbury are increasingly looking to use the same brand marketing techniques in the produce aisles as in the rest of their stores.
Brands are not particularly widespread in the fruit and vegetable sector, with a few notable exceptions such as Del Monte and Cape, and the relatively low margins in the sector mean that advertising and marketing expenditure has traditionally been low. Indeed, data from Nielsen Media Research cited by Keynote in its report suggests that main media adspend on fruit and vegetable products has in fact dropped, from £4.4 million in 2002 to just £2.2 million in 2003.
By means of comparison, Nestlé alone spends more than £100 million a year on advertising its brands in the UK.
But things are slowly changing, the report suggests, with more generic or national campaigns (from organisations such as The Banana Group and Intercitrus, which represents all of Spain's citrus growers) upping their advertising budgets over the last few years, mostly to capitalise on the health trend.
Perhaps the most successful fruit marketing campaign, however, has come from a company called Coregeo and focuses on just one, little-known variety of apple - Pink Lady. The company said that its target was to take a 10 per cent share of the British apple market over the next five years, putting it on a par with perennial local favourites such as Granny Smith and Cox.
The apples have already taken around 5.5 per cent of the UK market since their launch their in the early 1990s, playing in no small part on the wine-making credentials of the countries in which they are grown (Australia, South Africa, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, New Zealand, California, Washington State, Italy and France) and the associated quality and health image.
Perhaps encouraged by the success of Pink Lady, supermarket chains are now beginning to devote an increasingly large share of their marketing budgets to other fruit and vegetable products - and adopting increasingly sophisticated approaches.
For example, Keynote highlights the fact that Tesco has considered using male icons such as footballer David Beckham to encourage more boys to eat fruit, following a similar approach with female icons - it used the Barbie doll to promote Pink Lady apples in its stores, thereby increasing sales of that variety to young girls by a whopping 300 per cent.
As well as Beckham bananas, the company has also considered launching Superman satsumas and Action Man oranges, according to Keynote.
Another possibility is the extension of the Fairtrade 'brand' to a wider range of fruit products, and in a wider range of stores, not only benefiting the stores themselves but, more importantly, ensuring the long-term livelihoods of growers in developing countries.
Of course, retailers are not necessarily taking this increasingly branded approach out of the goodness of their hearts. With large numbers of younger consumers regularly failing to eat any fruit and veg at all, something needs to be done to ensure that future generations contribute to the growth in the market. Targeting younger consumers with products and campaigns which mirror those adopted for other products aimed at kids - such as confectionery, snacks or breakfast cereals - but which have perhaps a less healthy image should have the additional advantage of appealing to parents keen to improve the diets of their offspring.
And if these products are convenient to boot - ready washed and peeled, and in lunchbox-size protions - then so much the better.
But if fruit sales are likely to continue to grow in the short term, sales of fresh vegetables will continue to suffer, mainly from the growing popularity of frozen alternatives. Potatoes, meanwhile, are likely to be the hardest hit, as consumers switch to rice or pasta, perceived as being easier to prepare. As a result, total fruit and vegetable sales are likely to rise by no more than 3 per cent over the next five years, despite the continued dynamism of fruit.
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