10-Min. Merchandiser

Ever heard the joke “I’m so old, I don’t even buy green bananas anymore”?

That’s funny all right because as seasoned produce professionals we know why some people prefer to buy greener fruit over the full-colored fare.  We get it. … Don’t we?

The truth is that if you merchandise green and ripe fruit side by side, your customers will be happy, and your bottom line will swell with added sales and gross profit margin. Here’s how it’s done.

Recognize: The subjective ‘Big Three’

Most everything sold in a produce department usually is uniform in maturity, taste and freshness. There are, however, a few items we sell that are picked over more than all the other items combined. Every customer has an individual or rather subjective viewpoint of what he or she considers ideal. Typically this decision is based on the customer’s purpose or end-use. For example: Are the avocados being purchased to be firm slices on a salad or in a sandwich — or soft for guacamole?  With bananas, some people like greener fruit; others (like our senior comedian) prefer their fruit riper.

These are the most subjective, the Big Three. click image to zoomFile PhotoGrandma may want her bananas with a little more mileage. Keep green and ripe on the shelf to appeal to everyone's palate.

1)      Bananas are sold according to a color scale of stage one (solid green) to stage seven (full yellow with brown flecks).  Typically, retailers strive to have a 3 ½ to 4 ½ stage on the stand, which is fruit that is yellow with green tips.

2)      Tomatoes are available in numerous sizes, varieties and packs. But each arrives at retail in either a green or under-ripe condition, at near-maturity or at full maturity.

3)      Avocados are available presorted and generally described as green, “breakers” or ripe, depending on how the fruit yields to slight pressure.

Believe it or not, every maturity stage of the Big Three each has its own fan base.

It’s not about your inventory situation

Which degree of ripeness sells best? That all depends on the ever-elusive subjectivity of your customers. One word of warning here: Don’t try to decide which degree of ripeness is best based on your tastes. For example, suppose you receive a pallet of greener, stage two bananas, and you have half a pallet of full-color, stage six left from the previous day. Common sense dictates that you display only your high-color fruit. But you also notice that because the bananas are fully ripe with limited demand, sales are slow.

Meanwhile, the greener fruit is unavailable to customers and backing up in the stockroom. Which begs the question: What is the best course of action?

Also, it’s not about what you want to sell – but rather what your customers wish to purchase

The remedy is to offer green and ripe fruit for sale, side by side, and let your customers decide which stage they prefer. Customers make purchasing decisions based on a number of factors, but with subjective items, it’s a fairly simple thought process:  “What’s my end-use needs? Am I going to use this sooner or later on this week?” By displaying both, side by side, either customer mindset will find what it’s looking for.

Display methods

Many displays simply have newer product stocked with riper fruit stacked on top. Although this is textbook good rotation, the problem is that, especially with the Big Three items (although pears are another good example), customers may dig down to select the greener fruit, and the riper, tender fruit gets tilled into the display, becoming bruised or otherwise un-saleable, which then becomes a shrink problem.

The better method is to treat the offerings as two separate displays. Offer the greener fruit on one side of the display while carefully handling and stocking the riper fruit on the opposite side. Some produce managers take it a step further by adding signs that help sell the degrees of ripeness to their customers.  In one avocado display the signs shouted this out: “Take some ripe for tonight … and some green for later.”

Benefits of mixing it up

The primary benefit of selling green and ripe fruit side by side is that, overall, increased sales will result. Other “mixing” selling points help, too. Keep the displays neat and as full as possible without damaging the fruit. Cull the displays thoroughly to keep unsightly fruit off the display. Also, it doesn’t take much to add signage to help differentiate the green and ripe fruit, and always keep plenty of sacks handy so the impulse to buy won’t be stalled for lack of a bag.

Speaking of selling things on opposite ends of the spectrum:

We began with a lame joke, so we are compelled to finish with one: There’s the one about the jobless teacher being interviewed. When pressed about whether he believed in creationism or evolution, he blurted out in desperation: “It’s your call. I can teach it either way.”

Likewise, when it comes to green or ripe fruit, we can sell these either way, too.