A fresh outlook – Potato Council Retail Conference
An audience of retail buyers and suppliers, packers, distributors and growers gathered in London for the bi-annual conference, which revealed new insight into consumers shopping habits and how it can be used to make the potato category more informative and inspirational and help drive up sales.
New research, commissioned by Potato Council, highlighted that four out of ten shoppers make the decision to buy potatoes in-store, with three in ten making the purchasing decision at the potato fixture. This makes merchandising and layout a significant opportunity for the category.
Potato Council chairman, Allan Stevenson, presided over the days programme and was joined by head of marketing and corporate affairs, Caroline Evans, as well as speakers from Kantar Worldpanel, The Oxford Partnership and IGD.
Colin Boxell and Alison Braney from the Oxford Partnership explained the impact of the results of the new research. Colin said: The potato fixture meets current expectations but needs to do more to interest and inspire shoppers.
Simple considerations such as adopting shopper friendly language related to the potatoes usage and size such as new/salad, everyday and baking have real potential to positively influence purchasing behaviour. Likewise, drawing on experiences from other categories, which have seen great success using colour coding and visual clues, will help shoppers better navigate the potato fixture.
As Caroline Evans, head of marketing and corporate affairs for Potato Council, highlighted, this ties into feedback from consumers who say they want more advice when it comes to varieties and usage. There is an appetite for more information and we need to make sure we are encouraging consumers to understand the breadth of the potato offer. Improving understanding has the potential to help build loyalty and encourage consumers to trade up to named varieties.
To make sure potatoes remain regularly in shopping baskets, promoting meals with potatoes is key particularly to young families who are eating fewer potatoes than their parents. This needs to be supported by continued consumer education about their health benefits and demonstration that potatoes fit with their lifestyles.
Additional shopper insight was provided by Carmel OBrien, senior business analyst from IGD, who drew on examples from other categories that the fresh potato sector may be able to learn from, including effective segmentation and merchandising.
After lunch, delegates learnt more about the science behind flavour from Professor Tony Blake, who has worked closely with many chefs including Heston Blumenthal. Tony confirmed how eating habits and tastes are developed at a young age, making reaching young families and educational programmes to get children enthused about potatoes all the more important.
To round off the day, Kantar Worldpanels Ed Garner provided an overview of the current retail market performance, comparing own label value and premium line performance of the major supermarkets and demonstrating how value for money, as opposed to price, is a key performer for potatoes.
In summation, Caroline Evans said: The conference has been an opportunity to explore ways we can increase potato sales using effective category management, based on latest consumer research. I would hope that as an industry we can now work together to take these learnings on board and develop the category to positively influence sales.
Potato Council, supporting the potato industry, is funded by potato growers, purchasers and processors. Potato Council is a division of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (www.ahdb.org.uk).