Washington State’s unprecedented early harvest is already driving strong supermarket sales according to industry experts. An early bloom and consistently high temperatures through the growing season pushed harvest dates forward in the state’s orchards by as much as three weeks.
Early season sales reports from the Washington State Tree Fruit Association show that shipments to date are 12% higher than the early crop in 2014, and over 300% higher than the same time period in 2013.
According to Steve Lutz, Vice President of Marketing at CMI, this early season apple opportunity offers retailers an easy way to boost sales prior to the traditional October peak.
“There is a huge potential sales spike for retail supermarkets that recognize the opportunity to jump on the apple category earlier than normal,” said Lutz. He notes that the average supermarket doesn’t reach the seasonal plateau of 8% category contribution to total produce until early to mid-October. He says retailers that commit to early apple opportunities hit this level by mid-September generating up to four additional weeks of peak season dollars and volume.
“Washington had an early crop last year as well,” says Lutz. “This year is even earlier and the category data from last year shows that retailers who seized the opportunity enjoyed peak season sales levels several weeks before their competition.”
Lutz quotes Nielsen scan data results from last fall showing that chains which capitalized on the early season a year ago dominated competitors in terms of overall apple category performance.
“If you look at just the month of September last year, when the earlier harvest enabled retailers to build out full apple assortments sooner, the supermarkets that seized this opportunity generated significant sales gains,” said Lutz. “The top 20 chains in September grew apple sales by 6.5% with a category contribution of over 9%. The apple category average for the total U.S. was an increase of just 1.6% in sales with a category contribution of 6%.”
Lutz says last year was just a warm up for the 2015 season. “We’re so much earlier than normal –it’s just a great opportunity for retailers to energize their sales right after Labor Day. We’re already well into harvest on Galas, Honeycrisp, Reds, Fujis, and organics. We’ll have Grannies next week. The opportunity to bring in the apple shopper is right now, not October,” he said.
Source: Columbia Marketing International
