KINGSVILLE, CANADA - Strawberries are synonymous with Valentine’s Day. I don’t think it matters if you’re paired up or single, the holiday calls for a celebration of love—and strawberries offer that in heaps. I touched base with Mastronardi Produce® to learn how its strawberry program is revving up the category before the big day.
“With a goal of growing the strawberry segment horizontally, we have a berry for every taste in our strawberry program,” began Karan Kohli, Sales Account Manager. “Our three premium WOW™ strawberries, dreamberry™, lolliberry™, and pearberry™ each offer a unique flavor and texture experience. And our BerryWorld field-grown strawberries, which are ramping up starting with the Valentine’s Day season, are truly a better ‘everyday’ berry, carefully grown and selected for best quality. Together, our strawberries are changing expectations for how a berry should taste, with better flavor, better shelf-life, and more consistent supply.”
For retailers looking to use Mastronardi Produce’s berries to their advantage this holiday, Karan had a few tips.
“Making the berry shelf a destination for exploring new tastes and flavors will help to expand purchases within the strawberry segment. Our berries are special, and retailers can use point of purchase and digital vehicles to get consumers excited about the variety that our berries offer,” he noted. “There’s potential to pair each different berry with a complementing item from an adjacent category, based on its taste.”
For example, the dreamberry offers a classic strawberry flavor and pairs well with a good quality chocolate. The lolliberry, on the other hand, may pair better with a fine sharp Cheddar as part of a gourmet dessert grazing board.
Cross merchandising doesn’t have to end in one aisle!
“We put a lot of love and care into our strawberries, so that each and every experience is special. And what better day to indulge in something so sweet and special than Valentine’s Day? Plus, we’re pretty confident that once a shopper experiences our WOW berries, they won’t just be buying them once a year,” Karan added.
If that isn’t something to love, I don’t know what is!
