It’s summertime, and the living is easy – and so is the opportunity to merchandise locally-grown, in-season produce.
Now that growing and harvesting season is in full swing across most of the country, the time is ripe to leverage fruits and vegetables sourced from nearby farms and orchards outside of perennial growing areas like California, Arizona and Florida. Many of those products are a natural part of summer: Independence Day is just as synonymous with fruit salad as it is fireworks. For many Americans, June means asparagus, July means cherries and peaches and August means sweet corn, cantaloupe and tomatoes, to name a few examples.
The 2019 Power of Produce report confirms the importance of local, in-season produce to today’s shoppers. Nearly half (44%) of shoppers say they buy local whenever possible and more than half want a wider assortment of locally-grown produce. In fact, interest in expanded seasonal assortment jumped from 40 percent in 2017 to 53% in 2018. These items resonate with a cross-section of customers: seasonal positioning is attractive to Baby Boomers, while the term “locally grown” is especially important to younger shoppers, like Millennials and Gen Z.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Food Marketing Institute
