Berry Gardens has appointed Chris Hooton and Lisa Dowding to manage two of its multiple retail accounts.
Former Greenvale employee Hooton has begun his new role as Tesco trading manager, while Dowding, who joins from Total Produce in mid June, will manage M&S’ account.
Following the new appointments, senior trading manager Rob Playfoot will transfer to work for breeding partner Driscoll’s.
Elsewhere, new data obtained by Berry Gardens has revealed that consumers are now more likely to switch out of commodity fruit products such as apples and bananas, into berries, rather than from traditional competitors such as grapes or stonefruit, or switching between berries.
“This is significant as it shows that berries’ competition is changing,” said Berry Gardens MD Nick Marston. “The UK market is mature in summer so there are less opportunities, but there is still underlying potential for growth, in both eating quality and availability.”
The data also showed that existing consumers are buying more strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, while new customers are buying blueberries and raspberries.
Online sales are up by 44 per cent, the figures showed, as consumers are becoming more confident buying berries as part of an online shop.
“The trend is more complexity to offer consumers what they want,” said Marston. “An important part of our strategy is to look at how else consumers buy berries. Retail is the backbone of our sales, but there are other ways to reach consumers.”
Berry Gardens has now finished a £1.4 million expansion of its central packhouse, taking its number of packing lines to eight and capacity from 60,000 to 90,000 sq ft.
The company has recently worked alongside Tesco to produce new convenience blueberry packs for Tesco Express stores, priced at £1, as well as developing new blueberry snack pots, modelled on yoghurt snap-off pots, for Asda.
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