As the clock ticks down towards the Olympics, it will be interesting to see how retailers treat the event as a means to increase footfall.

There are sure to be stories of athletes who have broken records because they live on a diet of anything from rhubarb to coconuts. At the very least the 5 A DAY slogan should get a boost.

The fruit and vegetable industry has certainly never been short of ideas. Many, of course, have also staggered to get off the drawing board, while the devotees have found that packing and presentation was too expensive, or the contents did not perform as well as had been hoped, deteriorating almost as soon as it got on the shelf.

Others have enjoyed a brief period of interest such as packing peaches in tubes to look like tennis balls to coincide with Wimbledon fortnight, or single giant mushrooms which also appeared to enjoy an equally brief success as a novelty.

However, some experimental arrivals have quickly gone on to become a regular and accepted part of produce displays. The salad pillow pack, originally designed to carry watercress, transmuted to be adopted by the whole prepared salad range, with new mixes still arriving almost every week.

Mixed berry pack assortments, Ripen at Home and Ready to Eat stonefruit and kiwis followed the same route. One of the most successful arrivals were mixed maturity bananas, which appeared across the whole retail trade within a month of being launched.

Packaging, apart from its primary role of convenience and protection, is also a weapon in the retail arsenal, and one case has been the arrival of bowls of cherries, which make nice gifts.

More prosaically, more and more products are appearing in large carry-home containers, beginning with potatoes and onions and now spreading to include apples, easy peelers and avocados.

Then there are the varieties themselves. Already there are nectarines that taste like plums, and plums that taste like nectarines. Mini pineapples and bananas, gigantic papayas and baby cabbage, leeks and cauliflower have also arrived.

The breeders I am sure have plenty of new flavours in the pipeline, not to mention produce still to be commercialised.

One example is the mango, where experts believe there are hundreds of varieties still only known and treasured on a local basis.

It will be interesting to see what gold medals the trade awards itself long after the country’s Marathon has delivered the Olympic flame and applause has died away in the stadium.

On that basis, anyone in the future who can grow a blue apple may just be assured of success. -

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