As the British blueberry harvest gets underway, growers have expressed concerns that inflationary prices may reduce public demand for soft fruit, which is sometimes seen as a luxury item by consumers.
Chris Rose, COO at Producer Organisation Asplins told FreshPlaza, “Demand is reasonable, but growers in general are concerned about the rising cost of living affecting demand for soft fruit. Whereas strawberries and raspberries are seen as a British summer fruit, blueberries are not as they have traditionally been imported 52 weeks of the year.
While demand for the fruit continues to grow in the UK, he added that if growers are to compete with imports, then they will need to invest in harvesting machines.
Elsewhere, retail analysts Kantar Worldpanel reported that like-for-like grocery prices rose by an annual rate of 8.3% over the four weeks to 12 June, up 1.3% on the previous period. This could mean that an average household is spending an extra £380 a year on their food bill. One trend is that the demand for supermarket value ranges has surged by 12% as grocery inflation hits its highest level in 13 years.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said that despite a strong boost from the Platinum Jubilee, the inflationary pressures facing households continued to drive people towards discount retailers, with Lidl leading the way in terms of growth in market share.
“We can also see consumers turning to value ranges, such as ASDA Smart Price, Co-op Honest Value and Sainsbury’s Imperfectly Tasty, to save money and together all value own-label lines grew by 12.0%,” he said.