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3 tips to increase your fair share in fresh produce products

Selling fruit and vegetables has always been difficult. Fortunately, in recent years there have
been various consumer trends that can make this task a lot easier for retailers. By creatively 
responding to these consumer trends, retailers can make gains in the fair share of fruit and 
vegetable productson!

Tip 1 - Delivering nutritional values and capitalising on healthy eating as a trend

Consumers today are motivated to work on their health and resistance, especially now with 
the coronavirus among us. 
Vegetables and fruit  are:

● High in vitamins.
● High in minerals.
● Largely low-calorie. 

It is therefore extremely suitable for strengthening your health and resistance. How can you 
respond to this as a retailer?
Many AGF products are not packaged, which means that the consumer cannot directly see 
the nutritional values of these products; a missed opportunity. Each type of vegetable or fruit 
has its own specific dietary values that contribute to your health. A courgette, for example, is 
full of potassium, which is good for keeping the heart and blood vessels healthy. Few 
consumers know this, but they would like to know it.
By placing these nutritional values on the shelves, and making this transparent for the 
consumer, you can capitalise on the health trend. You can also place QR codes on the 
shelves (or on the packaging) that lead to a page on your website where this information can
be found. This way, you can show how healthy these products are (possibly increasing traffic
to your website) and stimulate demand for them.

Tip 2- Guide the consumer in cooking

The modern consumer cooks less often than before. On average, people in the Netherlands 
spend 18 minutes preparing dinner. The consequence of spending less time in the kitchen is
that people no longer know what to cook and how to prepare certain ingredients. As a result,
they tend not to use vegetables they have never cooked with before. 
A solution to this problem is to offer different vegetables next to each other, which together 
form a dish with an accompanying recipe. This inspires the consumer to cook new dishes 
even though they may be unfamiliar with certain fruit and vegetable ingredients in the recipe. Of course, 
everything is explained in the recipe. This way, you can cross-sell, lower the threshold to 
cook with an 'unknown' vegetable and stimulate the demand for such a product.

Tip 3- Use the sustainability of fresh produce products to your advantage

An ever-growing trend among consumers is, of course, the demand for sustainable products.
A survey by the ITC shows that in 2019, 85% of the 550 retailers surveyed saw an increase 
in sales of sustainable products. Compared to meat products and dairy products, the 
ecological footprint of fruits and vegetables is small. By providing insight into the ecological 
footprint, you can show consumers that you are responding to this trend. An indication on 
the packaging (or next to the nutritional values on the shelves) of the ecological footprint, 
compared to less sustainable products, can then stimulate demand. 
Responding to consumer trends is of all times. By looking at these trends with a creative 
eye, you can use them to your advantage as a retailer. Fortunately, the current trends lend 
themselves perfectly to stimulating the demand for fresh produce products. Are you interested in more information about the fresh produce market? For example, we have an extensive report on the 
mushroom market.