This year’s unseasonably warm October temperatures may have your senses slightly off kilter but, as retailers across the country are already reminding us with the barrage of festive goods, Christmas is fast approaching.
For many fresh produce growers and suppliers, it is the most important time of year and they are already bracing themselves for the festive mania.
The British Brussels sprouts sector relies heavily on a good Christmas trade and early indicators suggest they will not be disappointed this year. Sales increase five-fold over the holidays, and this year growers are anticipating good demand, says Roger Welberry, president of the British Sprout Growers’ Association and Boston-based grower. “More people are taking them up and, if demand continues [to increase], we will be very busy this Christmas,” he says. “We will start about seven days before, we can’t be too far in front for freshness, and supermarkets require the shortest lead-time as possible.”
The season had a patchy start, with volumes slightly receded by the growing conditions across the scorching summer and the subsequent rains causing a double-harvest affect, with buttons on the bottom of stalks becoming over-mature. However, Welberry says it is just a temporary blip which will have no lasting impact on supplies or quality this Christmas. In fact, this year’s harvest is top quality, and “sweeter than ever”, he says.
New varieties with improved flavour and quality developed over the years have earned sprouts a growing customer base. Welberry says they have shed their stereotypical reputation as the hate figure of the vegetable world, and are in fact climbing the popularity ranks.
“Sprouts used to be quite hard going but now they’re in vogue,” he says. Where we were bottom of the pecking order in veg terms, we are coming to the top now. Over the last two years, and particularly the last year, demand has been very good. People are eating more sprouts and we are providing as many as we can get.”
The increasing year-round sprout market reflects this newfound recognition. Welberry says Tesco’s sales rose by 30 per cent this summer and this is something UK growers need to capitalise on by extending the season, he says. “We are trying to plan late varieties to extend it into April, and possibly even May, then again we can go over winter in glasshouses and plant them under polythene and might even get early August. Then there will only be three months of the year when we cannot produce sprouts.
“Breeders can see this opportunity. Hopefully they will breed early and later varieties to match it.”
Cathy Port, fresh produce category manager at Sainsbury’s says sprouts are one of the retailer’s core Christmas lines. Over the last two years, Sainsbury’s has rejuvenated its offering with the introduction of a “sprout tree” - sprouts sold still attached to their branch - and for the first time, it is stocking an organic version this year.
She says sprout tree sales grew by around 40 per cent last year, and this year the supermarket is expecting to sell over half a million sprouts over the Christmas period, including a quarter of a million bags of ready-to-cook, peeled sprouts. While prepared fruit and veg is growth area, many customers like to do things traditionally during the festive season, she says. “A large amount of consumers still prefer to cook from scratch at Christmas. People change a bit at Christmas and cook more. It’s just having the chance really.”
Port says Christmas produce trends this year are similar to last, although Sainsbury’s is striving to provide more organic.
“For Sainsbury’s, organic is what we are focusing on this Christmas. We are the organic retailer of the year, so we are always looking for opportunities to introduce new organic lines,” she says. “This year we are trying to supply everything on the Christmas plate as organic. The only issues with that are getting sufficient volumes so we do not let consumers down - and trying to get British where we can. We’ve got range of good organic growers that we would like to support.”
Another important line for Sainsbury’s over Christmas is its Taste The Difference range, which includes citrus and mini root veg, such as carrots and baby turnips, which should attract good sales this year, she says.
Port says TTD at Christmas is about providing Sainsbury’s customers with products that taste better, look good on their plate and fulfil their desire for more indulgent lines over festive period.
Special TTD Christmas lines this year are dates stuffed with walnuts and a Christmas straight-to-table pack, which also includes dates. “People are looking for things you can decorate the table with…that’s where there’s an opportunity - it saves time and looks good,” Port says.
While health may not seem like a top priority at Christmas time, the upward trend in sales for products with widely publicised health benefits suggest that people are becoming more concerned about looking after themselves at Christmas.
Cranberries are becoming increasingly popular in the UK thanks to their impressive set of health-giving properties, and not least at Christmas time where they are a classic accompaniment to the ubiquitous turkey dinner.
JO Sims was the first UK company to import fresh cranberries in a major way back in the 1960s, and now, nearly 50 years on it is still importing fresh cranberries from US exporter, Ocean Spray. It handles nearly 300 million fresh berries from the US, mainly from Massachusetts, in the short eight-week season. Fruit is sold into retailers, wholesalers and catering companies from the end of October to Christmas Eve, but around 70 per cent of sales take place in the 10 days leading up to Christmas.
“All of the fruit for fresh sale is harvested using the dry harvest method,” explains the company’s Jon Clark. “The wet harvest where the cranberries are floated before collection is predominantly used for processed cranberry.
He says this year’s crop is very similar in volume terms to last, despite initial reports forecasting an increase. “The initial report from the USDA showed an increase in expected yields of around six per cent, but as usual with these reports, two days after the release there was a large hailstorm in Massachusetts that virtually wiped out all the growth.”
With fresh cranberries increasing in profile, the market has increased year on year and the UK retail market is currently worth around £2.3m.
Increasing awareness of uses for fresh cranberries is an area Clark says the company is continuously focused on, and it is seeking to do this through recipe and decorative ideas as well as using packaging formats that suit individual retailers.
The resurgence of people cooking from scratch has also propelled this profile. “It has created a better demand for fresh cranberries, as people who buy a fresh turkey tend to buy the fresh cranberry to make a sauce. Those that buy frozen turkeys are the more likely to purchase a jar of cranberry sauce,” he says. “We are expecting a large increase in the sale of fresh cranberries this coming season.”
JO Sims also supplies dried fruits, and imports Medjoul dates from Israel and the USA.
“Dates are incredibly popular at Christmas and Medjoul experience a large increase in demand as people treat themselves to something special,” Clark says.
Specialising in procuring Medjoul dates from Israel, Eitan Zvi from Israeli importer Agrexco says, like cranberries, date sales are on the up. He says so far there are no supply issues to report, and sales are expected to increase by 10 per cent on last year, although this figure could reach as much as 20 per cent.
As a rule, Christmas sales triple on an average month, and that is after an already significant boost from sales during Ramadan. “Muslims are eating a lot of dates around now,” Zvi says. “At Christmas we will see an increase over the holidays and that will be the finish. The English consumers will buy less after Christmas.”
Despite this obvious peak, dates are being taken up more frequently as a year-round snack, and in recent years have been championed as a good way to beat cravings for unhealthy sugary snacks, thanks to their inherent sweetness. Zvi predicts a gradual sales increase in coming years. “Because it’s an expensive item it’s taking time but when people try [dates] they will buy them again. There’s a big potential in that to increase sales. There’s plenty of people that have not tried them, so there’s lots of room for growth.”
Nuts are another must-have product for entertaining over Christmas and, like cranberries, they have benefited in recent years from their more widely-publicised health connotations. “In terms of health, nuts in their shells are particularly popular, as they don’t have anything added to them,” says Port. “More people are looking at those products as snacks because they are healthy.”
Hull-based firm Hider Food Imports Ltd supplies a wide variety of nut kernels into Morrisons, as well as a range of other independent retailers. Around a third of its total supply is used over the Christmas quarter, according to chairman David Hider. “Christmas is the busiest time for nuts,” he says. “Sales of all types reflect a greater usage from entertaining, snacking and generally improved education and information about their benefits.
“Tree nuts in particular are full of vitamins and minerals, and a wide variety of phytochemicals, like phytosterols and carotenoids, which may help protect against heart disease, cancer and so forth. Macadamias showed increases with the Atkin’s Diet but most dieticians will recommend nuts, seeds and dried fruit as an excellent source of all the essential elements of food.”
In terms of trends, Hider says nut packaging is becoming more sophisticated, but problems can arise where consumers look for both organic and fairly traded nuts as “…both extremes of the green approach can clash.”
And while roasted and salted nuts are leading sales, smoked and flavoured nuts are establishing themselves a solid niche in the market.
But for Sainsbury’s, the health drive does not come until the New Year, when the over-indulgence weighs heavily on the consumer conscience. “Health is not a massive trend at Christmas because people tend to be quite indulgent - the health issue comes in January,” Port says. “Our health campaign will start after Christmas so people will be able to beat the Christmas bulge.”
January may spell the end of the Christmas mad dash for most of the supplier base, but for the UK’s retail workforce, the festive efforts do not end with the celebrations. Port explains that, as planning for Christmas begins a year in advance, Sainsbury’s is already reviewing the ranges going into its competitors’ stores in preparation for next year. “We will develop our ranges by March next year for Christmas 2007 and it should all be signed and sealed by May,” she said. “You have to be always thinking ahead.”
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