Once the last word in novelty produce, mini vegetables are now a staple item on the retail shelves with a product list that grows more varied every year.
“Our freshly-dug baby new potatoes are in their third season and have developed a growing following with sales up year-on-year by more than 200 per cent,” says Freshgrowers’ Martin Evans. “The main feature of this product is the eating quality. Each potato has been carefully selected for a consistent, clear shape, colour and mouthwatering taste. Our aim is to supply tasty, freshly-dug potatoes throughout the year.”
Freshgrowers also deals with baby Chantenay carrots that are being launched polished and topped as a snacking option. “We also have baby parsnips in development with the first of the breeding lines becoming commercially available this autumn,” says Evans.
Mini turnips and baby cabbage have been the most recent additions to Sainsbury’s baby vegetable range. “The baby cabbage has been a success and mini turnips have found a relatively small but consistent following,” says senior buyer for roots and brassicas, Russell Crowe.
Sainsbury’s best selling items in baby vegetables are cauliflower and cabbage. The range has been developed in the last few years to include broccoli, romanesco, turnips, leeks and red and white cabbage. Mini Savoy cabbage and artichokes have also been trialled but one of the main successes has been the trio pack. “We have been able to offer 50 per cent free at times when we have had exceptional volumes available and this has both helped to move product and also to show the consumer exceptional value for money that in turn has really encouraged more consumer purchases,” says Crowe.
Marshalls is forever busy developing baby vegetables for future production. “We are constantly trialling new varieties and products,” says the company’s sales and marketing director, Nigel Clare. “As the UK’s leading grower of baby products our life-line is in new products so our extensive trials are giving us the potential of another three products to our range in the next two years. There is a clear demand for different flavours and more convenience has resulted in good demand up to this year.”
Marshalls has a strong portfolio of baby vegetables, producing cauliflower, broccoli, romanesco, Savoy cabbage, pointed cabbage, turnips, pumpkins (munchkin) and red and white cabbage, all of which have helped to hold sales in the last 12 months. “We have extended our UK production at the start and finish of the UK season,” says Clare. “In the past we have seen increases on demand, year-on-year, however the last 12 months have seen a slow down in sales and a slight reluctance to extend the area of sales space. This is possibly due to the concern of wastage during the summer months because of the return of warmer climatic conditions.”
Producing baby vegetables is not without its difficulties and these vary depending on the crop. “Our largest problem collectively across the whole category is continuity and labour,” says Clare. “We need specialised harvesting gangs for this operation and if you do not achieve six day continuity then the labour has to be placed onto other roles which disturbs their concentration and thought process on how to harvest a good baby crop. This, combined with a very volatile weather pattern so far this summer, has disrupted our continuity in the growing cycle and has made this season so far possibly the most difficult I have experienced.”
Since Marshalls has a wide range of production areas it has been able to overcome many of these problems and achieve a degree of continuity, but, says Clare, “we have seen a higher degree of wastage at field level due to these fluctuations that have brought about exceptional gluts at certain periods.”
Rising production costs are another area of concern, particularly with agronomic costs spiraling. “In the future there will be a clear struggle to make these lines viable for production. Such cost increases in minimum wage and packaging material are having a drastic effect on profit and loss on these crops for the UK farmer. Combined with a reduction in demand from the UK freezing companies for UK products we will continue to find our alternative markets for the oversized produce and the gluts being eroded.
This will once again force these lines into a situation where they are no longer viable to produce. At present our only way of combating this is through automation in packing and harvesting through reducing handling and increasing productivity. To date this has been a success, but this can only go so far.”
The cost of baby vegetables also has implications when it comes to end-purchase, which many believe is one of the main barriers to increasing consumption.
“Retails on this area will look relatively expensive during the UK season due to high deflation in core brassica products,” says Crowe. “However the flavour of these products and a great offer of no waste and convenience will allow the consumer to taste a difference to the core range. The sector could be expanded in the future through the possibility of prepared produce for special occasions and a natural extension of the range through new product development.”
Despite a marked increase in product lines, the future for baby vegetables is predominately based on flavour and it is crucial that consumers enjoy the eating experience in terms of both flavour and texture and that they remember how good the experience is. “It is vitally important that the experience never disappoints,” says Evans, “because often, when consumers buy baby vegetables it is a blind purchase. In order to keep our standards high we have complex trials that take place in terms of variety, soils and nutrition. One major factor we are struggling against is the weather but if other factors are robust enough we will not disappoint.”
When it comes to the success of baby vegetables on the retail shelves the main factor has to be convenience, says Evans, and there has to be no thought or fear involved in the preparation of the product. “Consumers simply need to know instinctively what to do with it, without reading the label, and we need to be able to achieve repeat purchase.”
Evans firmly believes that the notion of convenience has less to do with what physically has to be achieved to prepare the product, and more to do with the perception of what has to be done. “Baby vegetables can compete against convenience food,” he says, “but we have to be aware of the virtues of the competition and realise that baby vegetables compete with foods like pizzas every day. Essentially pizza is just bread and cheese that has been well marketed but we have to look at our range of vegetables and reinvent them in the same way that the Mini has been revamped by BMW for today’s market.
There are so many messages in the media regarding the need for us to eat more products - we simply need to be able to respond to the needs of the modern consumer. When it comes to baby vegetables I think we should be promoting them as nice, unique and enjoyable and not to look on them as expensive because in fact, they represent real value for money.”
The new product development team at Beacon Foods is also searching for innovative ideas. The company supplies leading food manufacturers and foodservice companies with a vast range of more than 500 varieties of processed and cooked vegetables, fruits and herbs. It has recently added roasted baby vegetables to its range with carrots, parsnips, courgettes, petit pois and potatoes included in a colourful mix that has recently been developed for a ready meal company.
It’s not just the market that moves forward. The expansion of the baby veg sector depends heavily on the availability of state-of-the-art technology. Herbert Engineering handles baby vegetables with optical grading technology. This has the benefit of easy operation and a new full-colour touch screen user interface and can work with a proven capacity of up to six tonnes per hour for potatoes from 20mm - 40mm, and also has the ability to sort raw material with high wastage not normally viable for use on high output lines.
Herbert Engineering sold the first DDS 1200S Autosort in Spring 2003 for the baby vegetable market. The machine detects defects in small potatoes. Previously this was carried out by sorting operatives who can vary in opinion where as the subtle decisions are now based on data from the 20 pictures taken of each potato to give a more consistent quality output.
Optical Grading has already delivered significant savings for Herbert Engineering’s customers. Some of these customers are re-investing in additional machines due to the return on capital already achieved with this technology.
One of the key features of the optical grading system is its ability to sort raw material with high wastage not normally viable for use on high throughput lines. Development manager at Herberts, Lawerence Defty, says: “The Autosort offers a simpler system for users who do not need the ultimate flexibility provided by the upgrader.”
The user friendly, high-resolution, full colour touch screen provides the operator with clear information on the grading performance.
David Austin, the company’s fresh pack specialist, says that a group of customers recently spent a full day thoroughly evaluating one of the Herbert Optical Grading demonstration machines using their own sample produce. “The clear conclusion at the end of the day was that this machine graded in a far more reliable and consistent manner than the human operators can currently achieve even when they are well trained and supervised,” he says. “It was also apparent that on very high wastage samples throughputs could be achieved that would not be possible with manual grading.”
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