Durose (who now runs Fresh Approach Produce) told delegates at the Fresh Produce Consortium’s (FPC's) annual Re:fresh conference in London yesterday that, despite exceptions to the rule – given successful non-retail brands such as Rooster Potatoes – the current picture was bleak.
“Overall brands haven’t been hugely successful in produce, whilst we’ve all described produce as different for years … it seems strange that brands don’t thrive in this sector, while they do in every other known food area.”
Branded benefits
However, he said that things could be about to change, and that brands could be the future for the sector: allowing long production runs (cutting costs), while new promotional and pricing structures could also help promote and develop brands.
Durose said brands were “becoming a bigger issue”, with retailers adding them into a wider number of product areas. “Why? Is it about wanting to provide customers with more choice, variation … If so then why not make the case for produce, especially given the time we’ve all spent refining consistency and uniformity of offer.”
However, Durose warned that building a brand was more complicated than simply sticking a label on a product. He said producers could focus on higher quality branded products, “taking the bar up to a bigger, sweeter product” and addressing other aesthetic issues such as shape.
Durose said brands were only part of picture for an industry that needed to challenge itself more with “perhaps radically different” approaches, given the incessant demands from customers to produce better produce at a lower price.
Summer fruit success
Promoting British and UK produce involved more than “just sticking a Union Jack label on a product”, Durose said, as he identified real marketing successes in British summer fruits such as apples and pears.
Such effective marketing created a level of demand for British produce that retailers had to respond to, he said.
He added that when he question the president of the National Farmers' Union several years ago as to why the summer fruits success had not been replicated with other fresh produce, he got the reply, “'because it’s too hard', which is a pretty feeble answer at best”.
Durose said the industry also needed to focus on taste and “freshness delivery”, rather than obsess over date codes and shelf-life, and add quality not cost to production, specifically regarding product waste, where ‘ugly fruit’ could still be sold.
Clear point of difference
Adrian Barlow from trade association English Apples & Pears told FoodManufacture.co.uk that fresh produce brands needed a clear point of difference (POD), with consistency and unity of product offering key.
However, he warned that this was harder to achieve in fresh produce as a commodity-driven sector (rather than say ambient foods), given a less immediately apparent POD in the consumer’s mind.
“Rooster potatoes have been a success because the product delivers, it is clear about what it delivers, and is backed by heavy advertising and marketing that has raised customer awareness and support,” he said.
Barlow added that snack packaging for a product such as sliced apples, for instance, could spur branded sales to fast food or convenience food outlets. However, he warned that the biggest challenge for the sector was persuading people to eat more fruit and vegetables, given low current consumption levels.