Marketing health: Fruit and vegetable purchases remain strong in a pandemic world
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As the nation continued to navigate a pandemic world, produce sales remained steady, with most consumers buying into healthy options as months of virus-induced worry stretched on. Supply chain issues and worker shortages may have had a local and regional effect, but overall interest in fresh fruits and vegetables is just as strong as it was pre-pandemic.
According to data gathered in Fresh Trends 2022, three-quarters of shoppers reported eating fresh fruits in the past year, and 73% reported eating fresh vegetables. Options such as frozen fruits and vegetables were much less popular, at 31% and 46%, respectively.
Read the entire 2022 Fresh Trends digital edition here.
Cost clearly factors into these decisions. Nearly 8 in 10 consumers (79%) said they thought they were paying more for fresh fruits and vegetables than they did last year. Most — 59% —estimated they were paying from 1% to 24% more for fresh produce. The rising costs of the pandemic are slowly seeping into consumers’ mindsets, although that doesn’t mean people can always buy exactly what they want.
According to the survey, slightly more than one-third of shoppers (36%) said they prefer to buy what is healthy and do so when they can get a good deal. However, 30% of shoppers said they only buy what they can afford, and 15% said it’s often too expensive so they do so rarely. Buying products on sale and selecting store brands were two of the top ways consumers were able to afford more.
More shoppers are eating at home, driving demand in grocery store trips.
Read related: 2022 Fresh Trends report reveals top 20 fruit and vegetables
Nearly half of respondents to Fresh Trends 2022 said that they ate at home more often than before, and 29% said they bought fewer prepared foods and more fresh foods over the past year.
Shoppers tend to head to the store about once a week. Thirty-four percent of respondents said they shopped for fresh produce four times a month, while 22% said they shopped two or three times a month. On the flip side, 21% said they sought out fresh produce between daily and five times a week.
Prime shopping factors
Income, along with age and ethnicity, stand out as the prime factors in determining a produce purchase when analyzing the whole picture. For most commodities, consumers earning $100,000 or more were most likely to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. In contrast, shoppers in the lowest income bracket (earning less than $25,000 annually) were among the least likely to buy overall, and it’s certain that rising prices with the COVID-19 pandemic will not make it any easier for these consumers to purchase produce. While these shoppers typically select basic items such as bananas, potatoes, onions and strawberries, specialty items are more out of reach.
In a trend that continues from previous years, consumers aged 60 and older were most likely to make a fresh produce purchase, and the youngest consumers — those aged 18-29 — were the least likely to buy for most commodities. This likely stems from older shoppers’ desire to eat well to maintain their health and younger shoppers having less disposable income.
When considering ethnicity, retailers would do well to consider targeting their marketing efforts to Black consumers. This group was among the most likely overall to be infrequent purchasers of fresh produce (a trend that was also true last year). Hispanic shoppers, on the other hand, seemed to be the up-and-coming ethnic group to watch this year. Latino consumers were among the most likely to buy a variety of fresh items.
Overall, 69% of respondents said they were eating more produce now than they did five years ago, and 64% are eating more than they did a year ago. Many of these shoppers use fresh fruits and vegetables as a snack food. Fifty-five percent of respondents said they were grabbing produce as a snack more than a year ago; 58% said they were choosing produce as a snack more than they did five years ago.
When it comes to where consumers shop, 60% said they purchased produce at a conventional supermarket. Another 29% opted for a specialty market such as Trader Joe’s, and 26% named a farmers market as their venue of choice.
Shoppers are up for trying new items, something that marketers can take advantage of. Forty percent of respondents said that an item being on sale caused them to try something new, and 36% said sampling helped influence them. Avocados were the No. 1 item respondents said they were buying now that they did not buy previously, with 33% saying so. Shoppers also embraced asparagus, bananas and bell peppers more than they did before. Nearly seven in 10 respondents (69%) said they were eating a larger variety of produce than they did 20 years ago.
Analyzing commodities
Bananas held steady as the No. 1 fruit, but for the first time, strawberries took the No. 2 spot this year, bumping grapes and apples (which are typically No. 2) into a tie for third place.
Watermelon inched its way up to the fifth spot for fruits, pushing oranges down one spot.
Raspberries gained some momentum this year, as well, jumping from No. 16 up to the No. 14 slot in Fresh Trends 2022. Mangoes, which fell off the Top 20 list last year, inched their way up to the No. 19 spot, knocking nectarines off the list for 2022.
While vegetable rankings remained relatively the same, bulk lettuce was the exception — falling from No. 5 to No. 9 (greens in the form of salad mixes just beat out bulk lettuce for the No. 8 spot). Another salad vegetable —cabbage— gained in popularity this year, jumping up the list to No. 16 from No. 19 last year.
