A 49p mango would have been unthinkable a few years ago but now that mangoes have entered the mainstream there is nothing unusual about the tropical fruit’s rock-bottom price point.
With retail sales growing by an incredible 57 per cent in the past four years according to Kantar, supermarket promotions are now stronger than ever. And this is enticing new shoppers into the category, with penetration rising from 19 per cent to 26.3 per cent in the same four-year period.
“As an emerging category, it is important to help consumers and make mangoes accessible,” says Wealmoor’s commercial controller Per Hogberg, but he accepts that heavy promotional growth in the category is “not a sustainable model” going forward. “There is a need to innovate and drive value back into the category,” Hogberg says – and rather than focusing solely on the cheaper, mass-produced Kent, Keitt and Tommy Atkins mangoes, which dominate retail sales, Wealmoor is taking steps to widen its varietal range.
As well as developing the Maya variety in the Gambia and Brazil (outside of its native Israel), the supplier has invested in significant plantings of other native Israeli varieties, and it is trialling several brand new varieties in its key growing regions. The company’s focus is to “develop existing supply chains and nurture new ones”, Hogberg says, seeing opportunities for retailers to use more speciality varieties such as Ataulfo, Haden and Palmer.
In spite of this forward-thinking approach, it appears there is still work to do to convince retailers to broaden their offer. Smaller fruit sizes and twin-pack formats, while delivering strong category growth, have put pressure on volume supply, Hogberg notes, with over 70 per cent of retail sales deriving from approximately 19 per cent of crops on the global market.
Some in the sector also doubt whether retailers will be prepared to enter the market for tree-ripened airfreight varieties due to the pressures it could put on supply. “I personally don’t see it happening because these niche markets are so specialised and risky,” says Peter Durber of specialist Afro-Caribbean wholesaler Tropifresh. “Supermarkets want a reasonable shelf life whereas we time it so there is just a matter of days between a mango being harvested and it arriving in a customer’s shop.”
In wholesale, by contrast, the market for speciality mangoes is far more developed, with high-end airfreight varieties driving most sales growth. “The niche marketers of mangoes, selling varieties other than Keitts and Tommies are doing well,” says Durber. Julie, a niche West Indian variety, and certain wild varieties are proving popular, according to the Spitalfields trader, while India and Pakistan continue to increase exports to the UK.
Despite this, Durber complains that Britain’s wholesale markets are being flooded with large volumes of excess stock and mangoes of the wrong size from the multiples. “Ninety per cent of the time you can pick these sorts of mangoes up at £1-2 a box,” he says, which is “well below the normal cost.” This is driving down prices.
On the supply side, meanwhile, dry weather in the West Indies has created shortages of Julie mangoes, while Jamaican Julies remain barred from the European market having failed to eliminate fruit fly from crops for the past three years. “With EU regulations, Defra won’t tolerate any fruit fly whatsoever,” says Durber. “If British aid money should have gone anywhere, it should have been to Jamaica to help small-scale farmers control this pest.”
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