HENDERSON Wholesale has invested more than £100,000 in its fresh produce category, working with 19 suppliers in the north to create a new brand called The Greengrocer’s.
It embarked on a full analysis, review and refresh of its produce offering last September, looking at every aspect of the business from the suppliers, products and branding through to in-store execution.
The result is the Greengrocer’s brand, comprising around110 products, most of which have been newly developed, with the range now available in-store.
It features a wider range of convenience products like prepared sliced and diced vegetables. Packaged leaves and salads join a new range of stir fry or microwavable packs which include a crunchy kale mix with tender stem broccoli; rice and quinoa mix; aromatic greens and rice and lentil mix.
Neal Kelly, fresh foods director at Henderson Group, says the range is central to thegroup’s ‘Famous for Fresh’ strategy.
“In 2018 we received 13,000,000 cases into the fresh warehouse, while this year we expect over 14,000,000. After a review of our produce offering, we decided to create a new brand that would represent the collaborative relationships we have with our suppliers and customers.”
The Greengrocer’s range is packed with quality products chosen for their innovation, taste and freshness to help retailers’ sales growth in this category, with one of the key criteria being the advancement of sustainable, recyclable and compostable packaging for the range.
Neal added: “We have launched The Greengrocer’s range with 40 loose and naked lines and we have eliminated unrecyclable black plastic on more than 30 lines within the range. In three of our EuroSpar stores we are trialling the use of compostable bags for loose produce with the plan to roll these out across the wider estate over time.”
