Celery was the leading fresh commodity for retail sales growth in 2019, and it wasn’t even close.
A look at retail category sales growth (combined conventional and organic) in 2019 revealed that celery retail sales were up 25.6% compared with 2018, said Steve Lutz, senior vice president for insights and innovation for Category Partners, Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Other commodities that showed 2019 sales growth above the all-department average in sales and volume (1% higher for both) were:
- Broccoli: up 8% in sales;
- Raspberries: up 7.7% in sales;
- Blueberries: up 7.7% in sales;
- Onions: up 7.6% in sales;
- Avocados: up 7.6% in sales;
- Lettuce: up 7.3% in sales;
- Packaged salads: up 5.6% in sales;
- Herbs and spices: up 5.2% in sales; and
- Watermelons: up 4.3% sales.
“There were only seven categories that were above average in both volume and price, and celery was clearly number one,” Lutz said.
Lutz said that volume of celery was also up 9% in 2019, meaning that demand for celery was thriving. Lutz said conventional celery was up 8.4% in sales and organic celery was up 12% for the year. Organic celery accounts for about 9% of the total celery category, compared to 5% for the organic share of the entire produce department, she said.
“So it was not like this was just a fluke shortage we sometimes see in seasonal crops, where there is no product available and the demand is relatively fixed,” he said.
Strong celery demand for much of the first half of 2019 spurred prices to above $60 per carton in April. Industry sources said at least some of the demand was related to the so-called “medical medium” Anthony William, who published a book in May called “Celery Juice: The Most Powerful Medicine of Our Time Healing Millions Worldwide.”
Whatever the source of increased demand, Lutz said both conventional and organic celery benefited in 2019.
This year. the celery shipping point price was $8.50 to $10 per carton in California’s Coachella Valley on Jan. 31, and total shipments of U.S. celery for the week of Jan. 20 were running 15% higher than a year ago.
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