Multinational retailer Spar has introduced new snacking vegetable varieties, bred by Rijk Zwaan, into its stores in India and Nigeria.
Stores in both countries will stock the vegetables as part of focus on providing innovative, high-quality, locally grown fresh produce and tapping into the trends of snacking and healthy eating.
In early 2021 Spar India rolled out a variety of Sn!bs-branded snack vegetables in four stores in Bangalore, which were met with a positive response according to Venkatareddy TG, Spar India’s business head of fruit and vegetables.
“Snacking is a growing trend around the world and India is no exception. Consumers are increasingly eating snacks instead of meals,” Venkatareddy said.
“The Sn!bs brand enables us to offer our customers something different: surprising, attractive, fresh and healthy vegetable snacks. Additionally, these snack vegetables have a longer shelf life which helps to reduce store losses.”
Spar created various mixes of snack tomatoes, snack peppers and snack cucumbers in red, yellow, orange and green colour combinations.
“Consumer feedback has been very positive. The colour contrast is very attractive and stimulates impulse buys. And the specially designed Sn!bs packaging certainly helps too,” he added.
Spar India said it is confident that snack vegetables will be a success given it aligns with the trends of snacking and healthy eating and it plans to increase marketing activities while also working on supply consistency.
Rijk Zwaan India’s local teams worked on the Sn!bs concept including design, nutritional values and product positioning instore and supported the instore sampling activities. Rijk Zwaan is also looking for suitable growers to support the initiative.
In Nigeria Spar Lekki introduced new vegetable varieties in collaboration with RijkZwaan and distributor Seedforth Agro.
The high-quality varieties are grown year-round on a 4ha farm and the first product successfully introduced to Spar customers was a new varietal, a seedless cucumber.
Spar Nigeria said it intends to introduce more new varieties of tomatoes, melons and cucumbers, building on the successful collaboration.
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