With tennis fever gripping the nation, BerryWorld seized the chance to raise brand awareness by serving up raspberries to fans in the Wimbledon queue.
In a twist on tradition, the soft fruit supplier gave away 80g pots of raspberries – not strawberries – to fans throughout the first week of the tournament.
The promotional event was the first of its kind for the BerryWorld brand, which was established just 18 months ago, and managing director Paul Cole said it was part of a drive to raise brand awareness.
“We’ve done tastings at retailers, but that’s mainly been own label,” said Cole, who was present on the event’s final day on 7 July. “This is the biggest event we’ve done to promote our brand but we’ve got more planned. There are so many different avenues you can go down to push the name forward.”
BerryWorld is still mainly an own label supplier, Cole pointed out, but it is expanding its branded offer. This week it launched packs of strawberries and clotted cream at the Co-Op, which became the first bricks and mortar retailer to stock branded BerryWorld products, joining online customers Ocado and Amazon Fresh.
Head of brand and marketing Charlotte Knowles estimated that over the course of the week the company had handed out 7,500 pots of its exclusive Sapphire raspberry variety, grown at Ewell Farm in Kent, adding that the give-away had proven especially popular thanks to the week’s high temperatures.
Asked whether he could see raspberries one day becoming as popular as strawberries, which account for 42 per cent of total soft fruit sales in the retail market, Cole said he didn’t see raspberries, or blueberries, reaching the same level in the next five to ten years.
However he said he saw big opportunities for sales growth, with raspberries and blueberries growing faster than any other soft fruits, according to Kantar.
“They’ve got a long way to go [to catch up with strawberries],” Cole said, “and part of our job as marketers is getting people buying into them.”
As well as giving away fruit at SW19, the supplier set up an open-air photo booth where members of the public could dress up as an 80s tennis star and pose for photos with their friends.
“We’ve tried to make it as fun as possible,” said Knowles, adding that she thought the company could have sold twice as many berries but had decided to limit volumes to avoid potential food waste in the heat.
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