Carrots need added value

“Carrots have, over the last couple of years, achieved some wonderful developments,” he told the Journal.

“We now have supply for 52 weeks of the year and we’ve had extremely positive comments from Friends of the Earth in terms of how residue free our produce is - in fact we’ve come top recently for the lack of residues.”

He said carrots continued to remain popular, having been voted the UK’s favourite vegetable and also been included in the National School Fruit & Vegetable Scheme.

“We’ve seen increasing development into prepared produce and new product development with the Chantenay carrot revolution.

“All these accolades have been achieved by hard work, high risk and the vision of the growers of British carrots,” he added.

However, it’s not all a bed of roses for the carrot producers, he said: “One of the major problems that we have as an industry is the retailers’ perception of carrots or how they market and sell them.

“There is no denying that carrots are a vital part of each retailer’s offer, and in terms of volume and value they are a must have product. However, the trend is a year-on-year reduction in the volume of standard carrot sales.”

He said the growers now find themselves in a situation where the marketing process has become inverted. “At one time, my understanding of marketing was to actually create upward movement above the price of production.

“At the moment it seems the objective of marketing is how low can we go [on price] to sell carrots. Going forward we will all suffer from declining volumes and if the market is not careful we will have a situation where 10 per cent of nothing will still be nothing.”

Evans said the constant low price will simply devalue carrots in the eyes of consumers: “We’ll get to a point where consumers fail to believe in the product and question its provenance as a result.”

He said the assumption that lower prices should mean more sales has not proved true for carrots, with the industry currently reporting a steady fall in sales.

“I’m aware that it can sound like a typical ‘growers need more money’ comment. But my message is a much more passionate one; let’s not undersell carrots, but let them by judged by their own worth.

“The major problem with carrots is the price - they are too cheap and that suggests all sorts of messages to consumers.

“As an industry we have many challenges, but this will be our major challenge. Each year we have a range of issues but with careful planning, vision and forward thinking, we will, through pure enthusiasm for carrots, be here to meet the challenges.”

In terms of the future, he said plenty of opportunity exists for the vegetable, especially with products such as luxury carrots, ready to eat products (such as Chantenay and coriander, and snack packs, and work can be done to create exciting new recipes to stimulate consumption.

“The whole market place really needs evaluating and surveying to assess the future needs of consumers.

“At the moment we, as producers, retailers and consumers have been too easily pleased with our carrot expectations. Its is simple and convenient, eaten raw or cooked, it has a pleasant flavour and adds colour to the plate.

“However the need is to make a carrots more of an experience, more expensive, so it retains its value perception, available to all, and most of all enjoyable” Evans said.

OKRA OPPORTUNITY FOR INDIA

It is not just the UK market that has been affected by the weather this season.

Kaushal Khakhar, general manager with Kay Bee Exports, said: “The delayed monsoon in India had raised concerns over the prospect of the winter vegetable season in India.”

Fortunately, he said satisfactory rains in most parts of the country during the end of the monsoon allayed much of the concern. As a result, India is set to record a bumper harvest of winter veg this season.

The leading product within that harvest is okra, said Khakhar. “Okra is increasingly becoming a mainstream product, and we are expecting it to be the winter vegetable with the maximum potential.”

He said the Indian industry has managed, through improved post-harvest methods, to create a very long shelf life on the vegetable, which has made it attractive to supermarkets.

The market for okra is rapidly expanding, said Khakhar, and the vegetable is beginning to make the move out of the ethnic market into the more mainstream arena.

“It is rapidly becoming a product which is consumed by multiple cultures and is no longer purely an Asian product. We’re seeing steady growth.”

In fact, Kay Bee Exports was initially expecting to air-freight around 150 tonnes of okra this year, but Khakhar estimates that to be much higher.

“We’re expecting volume growth of at least 30 per cent compared with last year, and as the season progresses, we wouldn’t be surprised if we ship as much as 300t within a span of four to five months.”

Production of okra in India is unique, he said, with the vegetable being grown in multiple regions. “That means during the harvesting period we have uninterrupted supply for nine months.

“But for the high air-freight costs, Indian okra would have been in supply throughout the year. As of now, it is perfectly poised to serve the gap in supply during the months of November through to April.”

When it comes to air-freight as well, the fresh produce industry has benefited from a boom in the passenger air travel sector. “This has forced many international airlines to double their flights into India, which has benefited the perishable cargo industry,” said Khakhar.

“This has enabled Indian vegetables to compete with those from other countries like Kenya, Jordan and other South East Asian countries.”

And it is not only okra that is growing in demand. Kay Bee Exports has seen growing call for products ranging from hot chillies, bitter gourd and bottle gourd as well.

LEEKS SHRUG OFF WEATHER

The leek industry needs to get more adventurous or risk losing its business to low cost imports, said Peter Parr, chairman of the Leek Growers’ Association.

“Loose leeks are still a major part of our business, but for how much longer?” he said. “Society is going more and more down the ready prepared route and the leek industry has to move with it.

“If we all decide to just keep doing loose, then we’re sitting in the hands of the eastern Europeans and they will just take the market from us.”

He said there are opportunities for the leek sector to move into more ready prepared and added value offers to tempt consumers. “There’s also opportunity to offer consumers mixed packs of veg, rather than picking up one pack of this, and one pack of that. And that could give us scope to encourage people to try other products. We need to get more adventurous.”

The season is beginning to shape up well, he said, despite a shaky start with the wet conditions in August.

“We have had a very poor start with the rain and the low light levels and the yields were very low, probably the lowest they’ve been for a number of years.”

He estimated the crop was probably down to around seven to eight tonnes an acre, compared to more normal levels of around 10t plus.

However, he said things have now moved on, and with the improvement in weather, yields were now almost back up to normal levels at around nine tonnes an acre, and he said the season was shaping up to be above average this year, overall.

“I don’t think we’re likely to see any shortages, but then you never know, and we’ll have a clearer picture after Christmas.”

Also, the wet weather in August helped play a role in boosting crop quality. “Quality is very good and we’ve had a very low disease rate this year. Thrips damage has been down due to the wet,” said Parr.

He said pest damage from thrips had caused serious problems with last year’s dry, hot conditions. “We don’t have a lot of chemical spray options to tackle the problem so we’re quite glad we had a wet year.”

As with many sectors, the leek industry has seen a fair amount of contraction over the years, said Parr, with only around 10 to 12 major growers left in the UK market.

“We’ve seen a lot of contraction recently, but I think it has stabilised. It’s gone as far it can,” he said.

He added consumer demand was remaining fairly steady, with leeks being a staple item in the shopping basket, but he said they needed to do a better job as an industry to develop the market.

“There’s a long way to go and lots of opportunity, but we are perhaps not marketing leeks as well as we could do.

“Consumers are not very adventurous with leeks when they’re cooking them, and we need to get better at marketing them and giving people ideas on how to use the product in different ways. I do feel we’ve been rather poor at that.”

One area he would like to see more development in is baby leeks. “There’s been a few attempts at that in the past by various people.

“They’re similar to a salad onion and I think it could be used in a similar way, chopped up and put in a salad,” he said.

The trend on other baby veg products there was a real opportunity for baby leeks to gain a greater market presence, but Parr said it needed more support from the retailers than it had received in the past.

“It hasn’t been well promoted in the past and it needs to be viable for the growers, but there’s definitely scope for it.”

THE SURVEY SAID... MORE INFORMATION

A study by Sakata has revealed broccoli to be the sixth most popular item on US consumers’ vegetable shopping lists.

The seed company conducted a consumer survey into broccoli to investigate purchase behaviour and usage patterns as well as to identify ways to grow the market.

A spokesman for the company said: “The results of the survey have many implications for creating new incentives for potential customers.”

The report found that consumers were hungry for broccoli recipes, usage suggestions and tips, as well as looking for nutritional information.

According to the study, around 94 per cent of the respondents were only “somewhat” aware of the nutritional benefits of broccoli.

Around 50 per cent of consumers said they would purchase it more if they were aware of the health benefits. A further 33 per cent of people were not aware that broccoli is a low carb vegetable.

Another key finding of the study was consumers need more information on how to use fresh broccoli; 50 per cent said they would purchase more fresh broccoli if recipes were sampled in store.

Another 50 per cent of those surveyed said they obtained new and interesting recipe ideas while eating out in restaurants.

A spokesman for Sakata said: “Potential consumers may be motivated to purchase through new recipes, new usage ideas, nutritional information and storage and handling tips.”

The company is urging retailers to provide in-store and circular advertising, featuring foodservice inspired recipes as well point of sale promotional material on usage tips and cooking suggestions.

Nutritional and storage / handling information data should also be included on the packaging.