Where do families buy their fruit and veg?

With the school holidays now in full swing, parents will be running around in circles trying to keep up with their kids.

Chances are, they’re being eaten out of house and home in an effort to keep up with growing appetites. It should come as no surprise that over a quarter of all wholehead produce is bought by households with children – and that this is on the up.

Year on year, child-free households are spending an extra 4.3 per cent on average, while households with children spend an additional 5.9 per cent. However, this increase in spend is primarily down to like-for-like price growth. As the overall grocery inflation rate escalated following the EU referendum – now standing at 3.2 per cent – wholehead fruit and vegetable prices rose in tandem.

In an attempt to keep an eye on spend, families with children are doing their larger shops in the discounters where they buy on average 1.2kg of wholehead produce – 45 per cent more than households without children.

Historically, convenience stores have been less of a popular choice with families. With their smaller range of groceries, convenience stores are less accommodating of large grocery trips and over-flowing trolleys – but, with fewer mouths to feed, the stores are a popular choice among child-free households. Recently however, despite their smaller ranges, families are starting to visit convenience stores more regularly and are now the second fastest-growing channel for families – up 13.8 per cent on last year – often due to their handy location and accessibility.

Time-poor parents are also continuing to turn to e-commerce. Families with kids are three times more likely to shop online for wholehead produce than households without children, with 12 per cent of this spend accounted for over the web.

For families, children really are the apple of their eye – 10.5 per cent of their wholehead produce spend goes on the fruit while in child-free households this is only 7.6 per cent. The humble spud, however, has been spurned. Families with children are 10 per cent less likely to buy potatoes than households without children – perhaps the additional elbow grease required to peel for more than two just isn’t worth the effort.