Ahhh, yes vibrant citrus: Heading into the new year when so many consumers are focused on healthy eating, the citrus category's versatility shines, whether consumers buy for snacking or juicing. Winter is the ideal time to manage and promote that avalanche of citrus, reaping sweet profits.
Variety versatility
Variety, variety, variety. This is the key component in driving citrus sales and growing a category. Long gone is the time of carrying “just” navels, tangerines, grapefruit, lemons and limes. New varieties — cara cara, blood oranges, Meyer lemons and the myriad of mandarin varieties — have taken the category by storm and are now considered everyday items. Consumers ask for clementines and Sumo by name. Strong marketing efforts for mandarins have both children and adults equating the brand with the actual fruit. Super cool, less-common items growing in popularity are Buddha's hand, variegated lemon, mango oranges and finger limes, to name a few. Items like these are increasingly finding their way into consumers shopping carts, not to mention have really awesome names.
Photos courtesy Brian Dey
Education station
With so many varieties of citrus available, it's a good practice to educate your staff on the different flavor profiles. Taste-test and sample each kind so that discussions with customers in the aisle are filled with suggestive selling. You want your staff to be able to answer shopper questions. Get your whole staff involved in creative signage by having them choose their personal favorite. On the sign or near the fruit, show their photo and share what they like about the fruit. It's an opportunity for consumers to get acquainted with you and your staff. A few signs like these are a nice touch and informative for the consumer. The signs should be as bright and bold as the fruit.
Super citrus spectacle
If you build it, they will come, right? Citrus is a category that does relatively well without refrigeration, so don't be afraid to build some waterfalls on your counters or secondary displays. Big, and I mean big, standalone citrus displays are super impactful. It's consumer eye candy. Citrus is a high tonnage category. Unlike berries, it offers a lot more leniency with shrink. If you ever wanted to try to go big with a display of fresh fruit, citrus is the perfect category to use. Risk will equal reward! Also, an excellent practice to help sell fruit is to cut halves and wrap them for your displays. This gives a visual window for what the customer can expect when they buy and enjoy at home. For sanitation and safety purposes, place a small sticker on these wrapped halves and write “display only” with a small marker pen. This is a clear way to define the fruit as not for sale.
Coloring book
When we build citrus displays, we often hear that there is so much of the same colors or that they're too similar. This is where the use of color breaks within the category becomes important. Tie in pears or apples or something else that “pops” in between those oranges and yellows. This practice adds awesome visuals and a clear separation between varieties.
Just juice
Citrus is a favorite among juicers and the base in a lot of smoothies and juice recipes. Print a few of your favorite recipes and create sections designed for that delicious breakfast smoothie you had yesterday. January and February are the perfect time of year to get your customers turned onto juicing.
Pricing and dicing
Like most fruit commodities, citrus comes in sizes, and the size you choose is a clear matter of personal preference. Some stores might choose to carry 72-count navels exclusively, and some might go with 56- and 88-count navels on their counters to target two different customers and two different price points. Pricing structures will vary of course by store and location. In my personal experience, using the multiple-size model, sold by each, yields the best results. While most retailers do offer citrus sold per piece, others also sell citrus by the pound. The benefit of selling by the pound is that it allows for multiple sizes mixed in the same display section. Quick tip on selling by the count: Try pricing in multiples (4 for $5 or 2 for $3) instead of by the each ($1.25 or $1.50). Multiple pricing triggers a consumer's mind to buy that specific multiple, which increases sales and builds that basket.
Savor the Flavor
One of my mentors who trained me early in my career said: “The easiest way to get produce in a customer's cart is to sample.” Now 33 years later, I still believe this is accurate. The pandemic has changed this age-old practice for sure, but I am starting to see a slow return to sampling with more food safety measures. Gone is the practice of placing product on display for consumers to take, called passive sampling. There are new ways. Some retailers succeed with fruit in covered cups handed to customers near the category or that item, called active sampling. Especially now, active sampling is the best way to sample. It provides the opportunity for suggestive selling and discussion on flavor profiles with your customers. With so many varieties, it's the category with the best opportunity for impulse sales.
Sack citrus
Bagged fruit offers your customer a quick grab-and-go option and a healthy sale at the registers. Consider bringing in 2-pound lemon and lime bags, 4-pound and 8-pound navel bags, and 5-pound grapefruit bags. Want to try something cool? Sell a mixed bag of citrus that you make at store level, packing a couple pieces of fruit from each variety and pricing it out accordingly.