Five ways to make your produce department more appealing
Fresh, brightly coloured fruits and veggies are a feast for the eyes, and the produce department plays a big role in attracting customers and driving sales. It’s no wonder this profit centre is typically the first area shoppers encounter when entering a grocery store. As we head into the bountiful summer and fall seasons, here’s a look at how grocers can entice customers and boost basket sizes.
Display of plenty
Well-stocked, abundant displays are mission critical. “This is going to sound old school, but stack it high and watch it fly!” says Julie DeJarnatt, vice-president marketing and brand strategy at Chelan Fresh, a produce sales and marketing company based in Chelan, Wash. “The stores that show abundance of variety through multi-apple displays with a little creativity—think baskets of apples and complementary items like apple cider—are the stores that grab market share early.”
Toronto grocer The Sweet Potato also believes in that old-school adage. “If you have a great product at a great price, don’t be afraid to make your display much larger than usual,” says founder and co-owner Digs Dorfman. “To do this, you need to keep in mind appropriate handling for each item. So, if the item you’re featuring is tomatoes, make sure you pile them wide and not deep, or they’ll damage.”
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Eye-catching displays are also possible with packaged produce. Last year, Newcastle, Ont.-based Algoma Orchards’ newest apple variety, Snowflake, hit produce aisles in Ontario. The sweet and tangy apples come in a stand-up pouch featuring aesthetically pleasing, white and light blue graphics. “It’s a different colour and it looks a little different on the shelf, and it has really caught people’s eye,” says Kirk Kemp, owner of Algoma Orchards. “That has really helped initial sales.”
Digging into local and seasonal
Appetite for local produce remains strong and the opportunities for merchandising are plentiful. Summerhill Market, which has six locations in the Toronto area, captures customers’ attention with large seasonal displays, usually at the entrance of the store, says co-owner Christy McMullen. “We also have a special table where we put seasonal products and use signage as well, including Foodland Ontario paraphernalia.” The grocer also samples seasonal produce and creates seasonal dishes in its prepared food and bakery departments. “Fortunately, Ontario produce is so tasty, it often sells itself and customers come in looking for it,” says McMullen. “Our seasons are so short; people usually don’t want to miss it.”
No compromising on quality
Merchandising tactics won’t mean much if the fruits and veggies themselves aren’t fresh. “Quality all starts with fresh product,” says Dorfman. “If it doesn’t come in fresh, it’s going to go bad in a customer’s fridge even if it looks good today. This all starts with buying the freshest available.”
Once the items are in store, effective staffing is crucial to maintain quality on shelf. “The produce department is not a department you can reduce labour in,” says Ron Lemaire, president of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association (CPMA). “The produce department has to have trained, educated produce clerks and a skilled produce manager who can recognize the product coming in, manage the product in the right environments … and ensure they understand how they need to present the product in store.”
Produce 101
For producers and manufacturers, it’s important to educate both retailers and consumers about new-to-them products and ways to prepare fruits and veggies. That’s a focus for Dole Food Company, which is rolling out Dole dragon fruit and five varieties of Dole mangoes to produce departments throughout North America.
“For dragon fruit and mangoes, which are still relatively new to some shoppers, an in-store education program is the best course to encourage product trial,” says Bil Goldfield, director of corporate communications at Dole Food Company in California. To support the mango launch, the company released recipes (in store and across other channels) offering ways to enjoy the tropical fruit in salads, slaws, dressings, entrees and treats. Dole is also working to educate retailers and consumers about dragon fruit’s unique flavour and health benefits.
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The Sweet Potato has a sign called “Check ‘Em Out,” which it uses to feature more unusual produce varieties, says Dorfman. “This past season, for instance, we had organic Ben Yagi sweet potatoes for the first time, which are a lovely and truly unique variety with both white and purple flesh inside.”
Pairs well with others
Cross-merchandising is always in season. That can mean displaying products together to offer convenience or providing inspiration to buy items throughout the store. A salad shopper, for example, could be enticed into the berry category, says CPMA’s Lemaire, so grocers should think about visual cues. “It doesn’t have to be dramatic. It can be a simple image of berries in a salad.”
Even salad kits and fresh-cut fruits and vegetables can be cross-merchandised. “Be flexible and creative with cross merchandising–tie these items into seasonal displays where you can,” says Amanda Knauff, 2024 Star Women in Grocery winner and vice-president of sales at Taylor Farms, which produces a line of salad kits (including its newest Mango Lemonade Chopped Kit), vegetable and salad blends, and vegetable meal kits, as well as Earthbound Farm products.
“Produce is a great category to boost sales and tying in fruit and vegetables [and other items] across different departments helps people to think outside the box when preparing meals,” says Knauff.
A shorter version of this article first appeared in Canadian Grocer’s June/July 2024 issue.
