Display photos courtesy Brian Dey
Greetings, produce professionals, and welcome to the produce department!
Now that spring is here and warmer days are ahead, let's cover some tips and ideas on merchandising for one of the highest-tonnage categories in the section – berries.
Berries are to spring like macaroni is to cheese. Coming out of the winter months during which consumers have had so many options in the citrus and pear categories, they are now starting to switch gears with their cravings for different fruit. This is the point when an already strong category in the department only strengthens.
Almost everyone I know eats berries, and if you were to observe the shopping carts milling through in your department, more often than not, you would see at least one clamshell nestled in there somewhere. Demand for delicious, healthy, convenient snacks is at an all-time high, and berries check all of those boxes.
To be or not to be
Or, in this case, to refrigerate or not to refrigerate … There are many factors that will affect where you display your berries and how they are merchandised. Seasonality, quality, price points and ad features, temperature, volume – all play a role in how you bring fresh berries to your customers.
It's ideal to have berries on refrigeration, of course, especially raspberries and blackberries, but space allocations and case real estate in stores is not always conducive to larger displays of fresh berries. Bigger berry displays mean bigger berry sales.
Strawberries and blueberries, in general, hold up better off refrigeration better than their other two counterparts. This is where some off-the-shelf and creative displays can and will come into play.
Pretty in plastic
Unlike a beautiful wet rack, with amazing colors and textures, or an eye-popping colored pepper display that immediately draw the eyes of a consumer, berries basically come in three colors – red, blue and black – and they reside in plastic a plastic clamshell. However, some of the most impactful, colorful and impressive displays (not to mention profitable) have come from creative merchandising with fresh berries.
Checkerboards, wide spreads, waterfalls, berry “walls” and pyramids are all cool ideas and great ways to merchandise and sell berries. It's just how and where you place them that will make the difference.
A large, well-built berry display is sure to stop a customer in their tracks and pull them over to your display, and once they are there, in go the clams!
Two things to be sensitive to when choosing your display size and design is berry health and quality and temperature of the display area. Warm display areas are not a berry's best friend, especially if the berries themselves aren't super sound coming out of the box.
If you are going to use waterfalling methods to create size on displays, be sure to do so with empty boxes. The same goes for displays that you will be going for height on. Give the illusion of mass with as little product as possible.
All flavors, all sizes
Display size and creativity aside, assortment is critical to building your berry category sales.
First, carry all “flavors” – strawberries, blueberries raspberries and blackberries. Every consumer has their favorite berry, so carrying the full array of fruit is both convenient to the consumer and important to your overall category sales and growth.
Second, carry various pack sizes of each variety. Consumers nowadays, with bigger families and a higher emphasis on eating healthy, are needing these bigger pack sizes to accommodate their needs. They are trading up the one-pound strawberries for the two-pound or even four-pound options.
Pint blueberries are becoming 18-ounce packs, and 6-ounce blackberries and raspberries are becoming 9-ounce or 12-ounce purchases. Personally, I can't tell you how many times I have picked up a fresh pint of blueberries or 6-ounce pack of blackberries before leaving a store and by the time I get home the whole pack is gone. I wish I bought more or an even that bigger pack size so I could have some for breakfast the next day.
While I am fortunate enough to have my work be in the produce department every day and it's convenient for me to just buy more, for a consumer, stopping at the store every day might be a bit more inconvenient.
And looking at it another way, bigger pack sizes mean bigger rings at your registers. So, where possible, leave some shelf space for these larger packs. You will be glad that you did! Also, stores that aren't full organic stores should have both non-organic and organic berries on display to cater to both customers. Although price point differentials vary, organic shoppers will pay the premium for the berries they want.
Berry builders
There are so many great tie-ins that you can use in your berry sections and displays. Bakery and grocery tie-ins can include dessert shells, pound cakes, pie crusts, yogurts, whip cream, granola, chocolate dips and glazes, corn bread, oatmeal, sugars — the list is really endless.
Having these merchandised in or by your berry displays will increase your basket size and offer your customers that sweet treat. Items like whip cream and yogurt are refrigerated, so those will need to be incorporated into your sets, but others can be placed around and on top of cases, in shipper displays or on shelves. Produce tie-ins, such as rhubarb, lemons, zucchini – yes, zucchini! – bananas or mangoes can lead to customers making pies, lemonades, breads or smoothies.
Options galore
From snacking to smoothies to breads and pies and salads, there are an infinite number of ways to use berries. Print out and post recipes and place them on your displays. This might encourage a customer to pick up a clam for snacking now but also a few extra clams of say, blueberries, to make a mean blueberry cobbler later in the week.
Suggest picking up a few extra packs for freezing for future use. Simple signage and suggestions like this are also a great way for extra packs of berries to find their way into your customers' carts.
Connect Four
No, not the classic family game from years ago. Just four final quick tips and takeaways for successful berry sales.
- When receiving, place berries right into the coolers. Warm backrooms and dock areas are not conducive to long shelf life for berries.
- Keep berries fresh on display. Cull any bad berries out of clams and replace with fresh ones. Be sure you remain aware on weights within the packs as are you replacing bad berries with good ones.
- Rotate your berries with each packout.
- Big, beautiful displays of berries mean big movement and sales for your department. Keep displays neat, tidy and eye appealing!
That's all for this time – now let's “spring” on out to the department and build that next berry masterpiece sure to wow your customers!
Brian Dey is the senior merchandiser and natural stores coordinator for Ephrata, Pa.-based wholesaler Four Seasons Produce. He's an industry veteran with a serious passion for helping produce teams to achieve great presentation and results in their departments.
- Resetting your produce department
- Onboarding your next produce superstar
- Wet Rack Wisdom
- Encouraging and empowering your future produce superstars