Despite driving $16 billion in annual sales and averaging an astonishing 92 produce trips per year, fresh produce is actually losing ground with Hispanic consumers year over year.
To help the industry navigate this stark reality, The Packer recently recorded an on-demand webinar titled, “Billions in the Basket: Engaging the Hispanic Shopper With Fresh.” Featuring Jonna Parker, vice president of fresh foods for Circana, and Ruth Villalonga, CEO and founder of Villa Communications, the session digs deep into the purchasing power of this crucial demographic — and what retailers must do to win them back.
Register here to watch the on-demand webinar.
The session expands on key insights first delivered during a powerhouse panel at West Coast Produce Expo 2026. During the discussion, industry experts revealed that capturing the market requires moving far beyond superficial holiday promotions. Instead, retailers need to focus on authentic, year-round, cross-departmental solution selling and cultural storytelling.
As Parker points out, the days of assuming Hispanic consumers will automatically fill their carts with produce are over.
“I’ve been in this industry for more than two decades, and I think we kind of just relied on that consumer showing up,” says Parker, noting that produce sales have only seen about 10% overall growth within this group.
“And that growth of the Hispanic shopper, when separated from all other races and ethnicities, is actually underperforming. So, we and fresh produce are losing ground with this shopper year over year,” she explains.
This trend is particularly concerning given how frequently Hispanic consumers visit the store. The average Hispanic household makes roughly 92 fresh produce shopping trips annually, making them one of the most consistent drivers of retail volume.
“We are in a just-in-time shopping world. Much of the retail growth of fresh produce since 2022 has been in these super-frequent trips,” Parker says. “One of the other really interesting things about Hispanic shoppers is when they buy produce, their basket is deep. It propels them to not just be more frequent, but to actually end up generating about 15% more per household annually.”
A Diverse Demographic
It’s also important to remember that the Hispanic produce shopper is a very diverse multicultural group, says Villalonga.
For a demographic that’s not a monolith, what are the core cultural values that make fresh produce central to the Hispanic household?
“If U.S. Latinos were a country, they will be the fourth-largest economy in the world. They just surpassed Japan. So, it’s a total of $4.1 trillion in GDP. And from that, $2.8 trillion is their purchasing power,” says Villalonga, who adds that the U.S. Latino economy is the fastest growing in the world after China.
“It’s not about how do we capture them today? It’s about how do we future-proof our business, because these are the people driving the economic growth in America,” she says.
One reason Hispanic shoppers are a growth engine of fresh is the makeup of their households, says Villalonga, who notes that according to the census, 1 in 5 Hispanics lives in a multigenerational household.
You have more people, more meals and more occasions where fresh food includes products that have a cultural language or a connection back home, she says. And while she says 90% of Latinos in the U.S. were born in this country, they inherit fierce food traditions from their parents and grandparents.
“In the same way Americans have peanut butter and jelly or mac and cheese as comfort food, for us it is the fruits and vegetables that connect us back home,” she says. “When I go to Vallarta [Supermarkets] and pay $17.99 for a pound of soursop, I’m actually buying the flavor of my childhood because my grandma had one of those plants in her backyard. So, it’s really about that connection — that nostalgia that moves this shopper.”
Villalonga attributes the decline in Hispanic shopper engagement in the produce category in part to a lack of storytelling and connection.
“We are not seeing this consumer as multidimensional,” she says. “The transaction buys you a visit, but the connection buys you a generation of buyers.”
Authenticity and Multicultural Relevance
From the meat department to seafood to the fruteria and made-to-order guacamole feature, fresh produce is merchandised across Santa Clarita, Calif.-based Vallarta Supermarkets’ stores.
In this webinar, we also share photos of the vibrant displays of fresh produce expertly merchandised throughout Vallarta’s stores and discuss why it’s successful at reaching a multicultural audience with authenticity, quality and convenience.
They’re culturally connected ingredients and displays, says Villalonga, which is particularly important with Hispanic Gen Z and millennial shoppers.
“The cultural connection of knowing you have all the ingredients you’re going to need, that your grandma would have used, and you just put it together and it takes less time, less effort and less trying to remember the original [recipe] is such a culturally aligned value proposition,” she says. “That is meeting the customer where they are.”
Offering a mix of culturally relevant cuisine and authenticity is also key.
“Everybody wants to be connected to what matters to them,” says Villalonga. “This is a population that is highly nostalgic just as much as discerning. They’re very, very intentional about health and well-being but [are] also open to new concepts, new ideas and new combinations that have a resemblance of home.
“If your outreach strategy for Hispanics is translating a flyer or having a Cinco de Mayo [display] or a little corner relegated in the back with mango with salt, that’s not meeting the shopper where they are,” she continues. “It is very important to understand that today’s Hispanic community is highly multicultural. We are the most multicultural group you will find.”
To drive growth with Hispanic shoppers, Villalonga emphasizes that retailers must stop treating multicultural marketing as a stand-alone effort and instead embed cultural insights into the core of their brand and strategy.
“Seventy-seven percent of Hispanic shoppers in the U.S. believe that brands do not understand them,” she says. “That is 3 in every 4 shoppers [who] feel misread and invisible to you, yet they still are purchasing products. Imagine the potential, the unclaimed opportunity.”
