A sketch of the veg market at the moment would look like one of those ambiguous images, in which one drawing can be seen in two different ways: is it a duck or a rabbit? A mother-in-law or wife? First perspective: vegetables (a broad category indeed) are breaking new ground. Consumption is up, production is up and health is now a priority for millions of shoppers.
Kantar data reveals a modest 0.5 per cent rise in frequency of purchase, with volumes up by 0.2 per cent, and value increasing by four per cent. Spend was largely driven by price inflation, however, with an average 3.8 per cent increase per kilogramme, adding an extra £196.1 million to the category.
“Any growth in vegetable consumption is a good sign, but when 80 per cent of children are not getting enough veg we still have a really long way to go,” reflects Courtney Scott, Food Foundation’s research and policy adviser.
Salad veg is the standout category at the moment, with last summer’s heatwave ramping up demand in supermarkets. Scott says the Food Foundation is closely monitoring the lessons being learned from the salad category.
“They are convenient and quick and we need to focus our attention on that. There are lessons we can take when we look to other veg and we should be eating a wide variety of vegetables.”
Scott notes that the demographics of any growth in consumption need to be taken into account, something which the Kantar data does not reveal. If the celery juicers and kale lovers are upping their intake, then great, but that’s not going to hit home where veg uptake needs to: among low-veg consumers, often unequally distributed across low-income groups. That’s the second perspective – consumption gains are marginal, and perhaps unevenly distributed (children also still underindex).
“The food system needs change but we also need to support families in terms of knowing about cooking and preparing fresh produce,” says Scott. With so many core categories like root vegetables and brassicas suffering extremely low margins too, lowering prices in retailers is unthinkable, all the while the economics of healthy eating for many is simply not there.
“It’s definitely a problem. People need to be able to afford veg and for a lot of people veg needs to be cheaper. How we support families and individuals to afford vegetables comes down to targeted interventions, for example the Healthy Start vouchers for pregnant women, but also wages and income need to be looked at. If you are looking to maximise calories, you can see why people find fresh produce expensive.”
Scott says the Food Foundation has had some “difficult conversations” with retailers over the pricing of fresh produce, saying any success will have to come from public and private sectors. Her own organisation is seeing the needle shift, however, with promising results from their campaigns to be revealed later in the year. “Peas Please is starting to see some real impact in terms of veg consumed,” Scott adds.
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