An insight day held in March to tackle the issues affecting consumer behaviour and what impact it presents to the fruit and vegetable sector was a success according to the Horticultural Development Company (HDC).
The Consumer Insight Day, a first for HDC, offered an ‘excellent analysis and update on the market’ according to delegates who also felt it was a ‘thought provoking’ and ‘informative’ insight into consumer trends within the fresh produce retail market.
Bill Parker, Director of HDC said, “It’s fair to say that the Consumer Insight event was a bit of a ‘toe in the water’ exercise for HDC. Providing our levy payers with market information is not core to our activity however the industry told us it wanted this event and we responded to that request. Having seen the feedback it is gratifying that delegates have gained some valuable and entirely new insight into consumer trends and that many of them went away with future food for thought.”
In fact feedback from the day showed that delegates had learned that they needed to ‘pay more attention to consumer trends and market changes’, that more evaluation was needed and that it wasn’t productive to stick to the adage of ‘just keep doing what you're doing’.
Other presentations on the day came from Michael Freeman of IGD who covered the economic backdrop and changing shopper attitudes, Chris Cowan of Kantar World panel who looked at current retail trends in fresh produce, and Richard Nicholls of Future Foundation who presented on the key trends for fresh produce - 2015 and beyond.
Bill Parker went on to say, “Many growers are firmly focused on growing the best quality produce in large volumes but they are not always looking at what the market is doing, how consumer trends are changing, and what opportunities this market presents. We want our industry to be as competitive and as successful as it can be and hopefully this event has gone some way to supporting grower businesses to think ‘outside of the box’."
Presentations from the event can be accessed here.
Source: www.hdc.org.uk