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With growth up by a whopping 56 per cent over the past five years – boosting the total category by nearly half a billion pounds – berries are on a roll.

Tasty, colourful – and, as such, Instagram-friendly – berries are bought at least once a year by 84.6 per cent of Brits and overall penetration is continuing to grow. This is despite strong price inflation of 6.2 per cent upping the average punnet from £1.79 to £1.84 over the past year.

Individual categories are performing well: strawberry and blackberry sales are up six and nine per cent respectively, with blueberries and raspberries seeing growth of 14 per cent. However, while taste remains one of the main reasons why shoppers choose to buy berries – at 59 per cent – what’s really driving new shoppers to the category?

Health remains a key motivator: 74 per cent of consumers are now turning to berries to fulfil one of their five recommended fruit and veg portions of the day.

Their versatility and the minimal effort involved in preparing them means that shoppers can pick and choose how they eat them – whether that’s sprinkling blueberries on their breakfast cereal, blitzing goji berries into a smoothie or alleviating dessert guilt by adding strawberries on top.

However, taste and health reasons aside, berries have also become the everyman’s fruit of choice. As commercial farming methods continue to improve and seasonality becomes less important for ripening, berries are becoming a year-round staple on retailers’ shelves.

The greater availability has also incentivised less affluent customers to try the fruit more often. Over the past five years the C2DE social group drove new shopper growth with one million households buying berries, in comparison to 675,000 new customers from the ABC1 class.

The category’s continuing popularity isn’t just down to shoppers’ love of convenience and an Instagrammable photo, but also to its broad consumer appeal. Customers of all ages and social groups are willing to spend that little bit extra on berries and, to up penetration figures even further, retailers need to ensure that they continue to be marketed as a fruit that everyone can enjoy.