California citrus a favorite at retail
The Sunripe Freshmarket location in the Hyde Park section of London, Ontario, offers a selection of citrus items year-round, but shoppers seem to prefer product from California, said Randy Jeffery, produce manager.
“(Shoppers) tend to be quite aware when we don’t have it,” he said.
More than half the floor space in the upscale market, one of three Sunripe locations, is dedicated to produce, he said.
There’s also a meat department, bakery and deli, but no grocery section.
In late September, the navel display was filled with large and small imported navels.
“They’re a decent-enough orange, but they’re not as good as the California oranges,” he said. “I’ll get customers asking for the American citrus quite a bit.”
The size of the navel display probably will double by Christmas, he said.
Minneolas, cara cara navels and mandarins, such as Halos and Cuties, also will be popular options as fall progresses.
Occasionally, Jeffery will delight his citrus shoppers by featuring “stem clems” — clementines with stems and leaves attached.
“Customers seem to really like them,” he said. “When we have them, people tend to buy them pretty quick.”
“They look really fresh,” Jeffery added, and they fit the store’s upscale image.
They’re a bit pricier than regular clementines, but the perception of freshness that the stems and leaves create helps them sell, he said.
The orri mandarin, which originated in Israel and now is grown in several areas throughout the world, is another favorite at Sunripe.
“They have a really unique taste,” Jeffery said.
The store buys orris in a master case and packs them into 3-pound bags.
The store also carries two sizes of pink grapefruit, which typically maintain consistent sales year-round.
“There’s not really a better time of year for them,” he said.
The store’s citrus display tends to be smallest during the early fall and gradually expands as new offerings, like cara caras and tangerines, arrive.
“Right now, it’s probably the smallest it is all year,” he said Sept. 26. “But within a month or so, I expect that to expand.”
The largest display will be around Christmas.
“At Christmastime, we’ll go really big on clementines,” he said. “We’ll double the size of our display.”
Fresh-squeezed orange juice also is a top seller at Sunripe Freshmarket.
It’s made twice a week in front of the customers so they can see that it’s fresh, Jeffery said.
“We put the oranges in, and you see the orange juice come out right into the container that we sell it in,” he said.
Twenty-seven oranges are required to make a 2-liter bottle.
“It’s a really big seller,” he said, ranking behind clementines but ahead of navel oranges.
A 2-liter bottle was selling for $14.99 ($11.18 U.S.) in late September.
Sunripe shoppers tend to prefer loose citrus to packaged product, Jeffery said.
An exception is clementines, which are packed in 3-pound bags at store level.
A lot of conventional supermarkets offer several packaging options, he said.
“It’s just not our thing.”
Jeffery said he has seen an overall increase in citrus sales over the years.
Clementines, orris and other mandarins now are the bestsellers in the store’s citrus category, he said.
“They are pretty much expected to be available at all times.”
He said mandarin sales overtook navels a couple of years ago.
Sunripe “absolutely” experienced an increase in demand for citrus when COVID-19 hit, especially in the lemon category, Jeffery said.
“I think they’re known as a detoxifier,” he said. “We went with a giant lemon display for the first six weeks of COVID.”
Citrus movement had settled back into the normal range by late September, but Jeffery said it appeared that a second wave of the pandemic was just starting to hit Canada.
“We might see that (sales) increase come back,” he said.
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