What’s in store?
With a record crop and a late start, fresh pears need a lot of extra push at retail this year, and the Pear Bureau team is meeting that challenge as we start the New Year.
Pears are facing a lot of competition from imported fruit in retail stores right now. Retail ads with imported blueberries and “summer fruits” are common this time of year. Last week, January 20th, however, pears were the third-leading fruit item advertised in the United States according to the USDA retail report which covers 17,000 supermarkets. Apples and oranges were numbers one and two respectively in their report.
To increase the momentum of pear sales and ensure that we are front and center in ads and in stores, we have doubled down on promotions. Our Regional Managers have secured 88 percent more seasonal activity agreements for January and February this year compared to last year. These agreements include in-store and newspaper advertisements, sales and display contests and sampling.
Sampling events are expensive, however, sales increases reported this year due to sampling is averaging around 120 percent. In addition, it is a great way to educate consumers about how to tell when pears are ripe and their versatility. This season to date, we have reached over 250,000 consumers with our sampling programs.
Display and sales contests not only increase display size and placement, reported increases this year have been in the neighborhood of 90 percent. We are also trying new tactics such as couponing.
As you can see, we have a lot in store for the next several months—successful and effective activities and lots of them!
All pears all the time,
Kevin
kmoffitt@usapears.com
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