Grow to Meet Consumer’s Needs or Be Left Behind

This article appeared in the ‘From The Editor’ section
of the April 2001 edition of “The Grower.”

N THIS ERA where consumers are faced with a barrage of choices, no longer can you grow a crop as you have for decades and expect consumers to buy it. Today’s food shoppers typically don’t want to, or even have the time to, stand in front of a stove all day to cook pot roast, baked potatoes, and carrots as generations before them did. They want something quick and convenient.

The number of processed foods is growing and, unfortunately, so is competition against your produce for consumers’ dollars.

To stay in the mix, you’ll have to give them a superior product. And perception plays a big role in what consumers will accept. Prune sales have been lagging for several years, partly because younger shoppers believe they’re a food that their grandparents ate for medicinal purposes. In the world of advertising, unfortunately, image is everything.

Even with the new name -- dried plums -- the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently approved, it’s still the same product presented in the same form with the same social stigma. For the dried plum industry to survive or even grow, new forms and uses must be developed that cater to today’s consumer life-styles and perceptions.

On the processed fruit side, Del Monte Foods is one company that is changing. Seeing that canned cling peaches in heavy syrup was a product with stagnating or declining sales, the company installed two different product packing lines in its new Modesto, California, facility. One processes fruit for its value-added jarred line of Orchard Select and Sunfresh products. The high-end fruit, found in the produce section, is billed as tasting more like fresh. And sales are flourishing.

Another line packs 4-ounce plastic cups filled with “Fruit-to-Go” for school children, bag lunches, or after-school snacks.

Peeled baby carrots have not only filled the need for a more convenient product, they’ve also increased the overall consumption of carrots -- something that I bet growers of most commodities would ultimately want. Apple processors are just beginning to provide a sliced, easy-to-eat product they hope will take off like the carrots.

And the potato industry, which has found out through consumer surveys that spuds are perceived as inconvenient by the housewife, is trying to develop more time-saving offerings.

Granted, changing what you grow to meet consumers’ demands isn’t always easy. But without change, your commodity could be left by the wayside in today’s fast-paced marketplace.