Italy has seen a boom in fruit and vegetable consumption during the first two months of 2017.
According to the Macfrut Consumers’ Trend Report, this was the best result achieved in the last 17 years' worth of surveys.
Despite an annual growth rate of only 4%, the sales growth was achieved in a situation of bad weather (frost) that hit Italy earlier this year, causing many production, logistics and distribution problems.
In detail, about 1.3 million tonnes of fruit and vegetable were sold, of which more than 711,000 tonnes of fruit (+4%) and over 590,000 tonnes of vegetables (+5%). For both macro categories, the January to February 2017 figures were the highest in the history recorded by CSO Italy (since 2000).
The Italians were not discouraged by the increase in the average prices of fruit and vegetables in the reference period to €1.62/kg (+3% over 2016). Specifically, fruit was purchased on average at €1.47/kg (+2%) and vegetables at €1.80/kg (+3%). On average, the adverse climate affected prices of zucchini (+11%), tomatoes (+7%), eggplants (+6%) and fennel, peppers and radishes (+5%).
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
