MONTEREY, Calif. -- Retailers wondering how to best integrate bulk and value-added produce have one simple answer. It depends.
That is according to a panel of speakers at the Annual Produce Conference here last month. The panelists agreed that no one technique will work for all stores or all chains.
"There's no right or wrong," said Lorri Koster, director of trade and media relations for Mann Packing in Salinas, Calif. "It depends on what fits in your format. But wherever you do decide to put the items, they should have a home, and they should be grouped together, so there is sensibility to the consumer," she said.
Nancy Tubbs, senior marketing director for Dole Fresh Vegetable Co., also in Salinas, agreed that retailers need to find what works best for their stores.
To do that, they have to bear in mind each store's clientele, Tubbs said. A recent Dole survey of 1,200 consumers revealed four distinct types of salad-buying consumers. Thirty-two percent of consumers are "creative," according to the Dole study -- meaning they enjoy experimenting with various ways to make a salad.
This group tends to serve the most produce and tends to skew older, she said. A quarter of the participants in the survey were "convenience" salad eaters. This group is more likely to cook meals low in fat and calories, she said. Convenience users don't like to spend much time shopping in the produce department or in the kitchen. Convenience users would likely respond to more packaged value-added items, she suggested. So-called traditionalists made up 18% of the those surveyed, and Tubbs described this group as the hardest to get a feel for.
Traditionalists eat salad because they're supposed to. "It balances the meal, and it's kind of their duty to eat it," she said. Consumers in this group consider themselves creative and enjoy cooking, but often have time constraints. Traditionalists also occasionally shop at warehouse clubs.
