As healthy eating moves up the political agenda, the multiples have been upping their game in making fresh fruit and vegetables more affordable in the face of rising base prices.
Over the past two years, the number of deals on fresh fruit and vegetables in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose* has increased by a massive 43%, to a total of 3,463 deals [BrandView.co.uk]. Much of this increase can be put down to Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, which ran 162% and 69% more produce promotions respectively in the past 12 months than they did in 2010.
But Waitrose and Sainsbury’s still have some catching up to do to reach Tesco, which continues to dominate the promotional landscape and accounted for 48.1% of all fruit and veg promotions over the past year.
Number of promotions by retailer
■ Asda 220
■ Tesco 1,667
■ Waitrose 885
■ Sainsbury’s 693
Source: BrandView.co.uk 52w/e 9 May 2012
Tesco has been particularly dominant in fresh vegetable promotions - it ran 57.1% of the 1,557 vegetable deals in the multiples, followed by Waitrose (23.6%), Sainsbury’s (14.5%), Asda (4.8%). On fruit, the deals are distributed slightly more evenly between the multiples, with Tesco running 40.8% of all deals, ahead of Waitrose (27.1%) and Sainsbury’s (24.5%).
Asda ran just 145 of the 1,908 fruit promotions and has reduced its total number of fresh fruit and veg offers by 11% over the past year. Fresh produce promotions in Asda are lower than in other mults because of the retailer’s everyday low price strategy - which sees it focus on permanent price cuts instead of promotions - but also because it has put increasing focus on frozen, rather than fresh, products. In the past 12 months, it has increased the number of frozen vegetable promotions by 8%.
Wholesale prices 12 May 2012: packaging
For buyers used to rising year-on-year commodity prices, the packaging sector is a welcome sight at the moment. All 10 of the packaging materials in our tracker are currently cheaper than they were a year ago, with steel down nearly 20% on 2011 levels.
Even the plastics, with their exposure to rising crude oil prices, have kept a lid on year-on-year inflation.
There is some upward movement month-on-month, however, driven largely by higher feedstock prices - naptha in particular - and tight EU supplies. LDPE prices have lurched up nearly 20% over the past month, while HDPE is up 7.6% and only marginally cheaper year-on-year.
Meanwhile, weakened demand as a result of the economic downturn and the crisis in the eurozone has continued to keep aluminium prices down - at £1231.2/t, they are now 17.6% down year-on-year, having fallen by a further 11% over the past month.
The most popular promotional mechanic in both fresh fruit and vegetables was the “two for…” offer, which accounted for 36.2% of vegetable deals and 43.9% of fruit deals. This coincides with a marked move away from save amounts in the veg category - these accounted for 42.5% of veg deals two years ago but now account for just 34.2%. With consumers increasingly concerned about food waste, bogofs remain one of the least popular mechanics in fruit and veg, accounting for just 2.3% of all fresh produce promotions.
Across the core fruit and vegetable range stocked by all four retailers, prices fell by 4% in the past year, but prices were up by 12% when taking into account all products.
Some of these year-on-year price increases are down to seasonality. Asparagus, for example, is currently up 16% year-on-year, after the English season was delayed following the recent rains.
Other weapons in the supermarket price war remained unchanged. Bananas started and finished the year at 68p per kilo - while carrots, at £1-£4 per kilo, are way more expensive. Go figure!
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