Americans Buying More Produce

The volume of fresh fruits and vegetables purchased by American consumers increased over the past year, according to United Fresh Foundation’s Fresh Facts on Retail report for the fourth quarter of 2009.

The report shows an overall weekly volume increase for fresh produce of 6% over the fourth quarter of 2008, as well as dollar sales increases for some categories of fresh fruit and vegetables, often a result of lower prices.

“While lower prices attracted more consumers to the fresh produce department, we see mixed results in the overall impact in volume and sales,” said Victoria Backer, United Fresh senior vice president of member services, foundation. “However, unlike the past few quarters, we are starting to see a slight increase in overall produce sales, up 0.5% compared to the third quarter of 2009, which is a positive sign in today’s unstable economy.”

Some highlights from this quarter’s report include:

• Fruit prices were lower by 5.7%, resulting in a 6.5% increase in volume.
• Vegetable prices were 9.2% lower on average, resulting in a 5.9% increase in volume.
• The volume of fruit purchased in Q4 2009 increased for every variety compared to Q4 2008, with avocados posting the largest volume growth, up 27.5%.
• All of the top vegetable varieties increased in volume compared to Q4 2008, with prepared vegetables up the most at 7.7%.
• Lower average retail prices for value-added fruits spurred a 12.1% increase in volume and a 9.1% increase for value-added vegetables.
• Organic vegetables outsold organic fruit in dollar and volume sales.

Find out more at www.unitedfresh.org.

source: United Fresh Foundation news release