Archive for 'On The Road Again'

Well, no – a greengrocer who is smart enough to earn extra revenue by advertising a convenient lunch location up the road. 

The road by the way is Oxford Street, London , directly across from retail icon Selfridges.

The photo was taken in mid-June, in a season the English call ’summer’!

The fruit is nicely blocked in its trays and the focus is on summer fruit, not an apple or banana in sight.  Neither are price tickets.

Contrast that with this photo, taken 100 m further up the road.

The picture is not as sharp as I would have  liked, but I am sure you get the jist.  The fruit is displayed with flair. Bananas and green grapes are used to accentuate the predominant red colour of peaches, cherries and plums – and the price tickets are not only plentiful but easy to read and professionally executed.

Is it a cathedral?  Is it a railway station?  Is it a bull ring?  Or could it by any chance be the produce market in Valencia, Spain?

Beautifully merchandised fruit & vegetables at a Munich open air market.  Spring is in the air and this produce will just about fly into shoppers’ canvas bags (no plastic bag anywhere to be seen)  on its own.  Everything is fresh, everything is clearly ticketed and every item is hand selected by a saleswoman who gets away with pretending to have grown half the goods and being an expert on the other half.  Perception is nine tenth of reality here and it is being managed very well.  – Note the white Asparagus spears in the front of the display.

I spent most of May travelling.  I ended up in Germany, as one does when one is called Sauerkraut, but also in Spain, the UK and Singapore.  Rather than bore readers with extensive ‘thought pieces’ as I am prone to do at times, I will post here a few snapshots of relevance to the fresh produce game in the next few days from the various countries I visited, along with a short commentary:

First cab of the rank is Chiquita.  A recipe for transforming a fruit sticker into a retailer brand! Any takers here in New Zealand?  That is the sort of strategy John Paynter is capable of pulling off!  What are the risks though?  Are the rewards worth it?  Does anyone know whether this is actually working for Chiquita?

And in case you are wondering about the location – Munich railway station!