A review of retail sales data by Stemilt Growers’ Roger Pepperl an Brianna Shales shows apples have been a strong performer for the last quarter, and there is more to come.
Pepperl, marketing director, and Shales, senior marketing manager, reviewed apple category data in their video series Fast Facts: The Cast.
For the 12 weeks ending Sept. 26, the Stemilt marketing duo said retailers who carried a versatile product mix elevated the category.
“We saw that retailers sold 1.5% more pounds of apples over the past three months when compared to the same time the year prior while dollars were flat, up just 0.7%,” Shales said in a news release.
“This shows us that gains in both dollars and pounds in the category is great, especially when two of the three months were a slower time in general for apples as we transitioned between crops. Overall, we had good availability of apples during this timeframe and had been riding a COVID-19 wave where apple sales were up considerably more than this data set shows.”
Shales said in the release that retailers should carry multiple varieties so that one variety alone doesn’t dominate the category like Honeycrisp did over the last 12 weeks.
“Honeycrisp lead the category this month, doubling its digit dollar and volume,” Shales said in the release. She said in the release that Honeycrisp was up 17% in sales dollars year-over-year and made up nearly one third of apple category sales.
Fuji grew in dollars by 8% and nearly 6% in pounds, while Shales said other varieties showed a decline in dollars.
Data showed that almost half the gain of Honeycrisp, Shales said in the release, came at the decline of red delicious. The category needs the support of other varieties, including fuji, gala, and granny smith, in addition to new varieties such as Rave and SweeTango, she said.
“If retailers want to see category numbers increase, they should run multi-variety ads that feature multiple core values, as well as some standalone ads on premium varieties,” Shales said in the release. “Packaged apples are also a trending item and show great potential to move more volume at a stronger retail price while bulk apple sales are down.”
