Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 13.1
Major cultivars
of mango marketed in the
European Union and the
United States. Cultivars in
italics are the most important
in terms of sales volume for
each market
European Union
US
Haden
Ataulfo
Kent
Francis
Keitt
Keitt
Tommy Atkins
Kent
Alfonso
Tommy Atkins
Julie
Alphonse (Alphonso)
Zill
Edward
Osteen
Kesar
Maya
Manila
Shelly
Palmer
is declining propensity from consumers in developed economies to pay more for
fruits and vegetables then the slow decline in fresh produce diversity and increase in
commoditization will continue amongst middle income social economic groupings.
There is no uniform approach to quality in the retail market. Instead, each of the
multiple retailers has developed a 'quality position' in terms of the products they
sell as well as the shopping experience they provide (Terry et al.
2013
). Retailers
will use their 'quality position' to differentiate themselves from each other, to at-
tract particular types of customer to their stores and to develop specifications for
their suppliers. These specifications are particularly important for the retailers 'own
label' ranges including the majority of fruit and vegetables.
In many developed economies the major multiple retailers have developed three
quality tiers for their fruit and vegetables (Terry et al.
2013
). These have various
names depending on the retailer but can be broadly categorized as follows: Pre-
mium, Standard and Basic/Value. These three tiers provide a basis for understand-
ing fruit and vegetable quality across large parts of the retail market but cannot be
applied in every case. Even in the retailers that recognize three quality tiers it does
not follow that all fruit and vegetables are offered at every quality level, for example
typically bananas are just offered as a standard or value range whereas apples are
commonly sold at all three levels. Indeed, some products may be offered in the
premium tier for only certain periods because they depend on a particular cultivar
being available in the season.
Some fruit and vegetables have additional branding like Organic or Fair Trade or
carry a carbon label or some other differentiator for example 'Red Tractor'. These
types of branding are not generally used as a quality attribute, that is the presence
or absence of one or another mark does not lead the retailer to automatically assign
that product to a particular quality tier. In other words these attributes have only a
secondary influence on the retailers' quality positioning for fruit and vegetables.
In the fresh produce industry in developed economies, there are few truly dedi-
cated supply chains; instead the major growers/suppliers tend to have multiple cus-
tomers (Terry et al.
2013
). The advantage of this approach is that it ensures the
crop is better utilized. Typically the way this works is that suppliers have multiple
