02 Jan 2008


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The Greenery ready to stock up supermarkets for healthy eating boom

The Greenery

health

fresh produce

Source : The Greenery
The Greenery - a major supplier of salads and fresh vegetables to UK supermarkets - is working with its customers to prepare for a very short healthy eating boom immediately after Christmas.

Tomato harvest

It will not be a long-term logistical exercise because previous experience suggests the boom will last no more than three weeks.

Martin Brown, managing director of Greenery UK, said: "The first week after Christmas always sees a huge increase in salad sales. It is not clear if this is because of a wave of New Year resolutions to adopt a healthier diet or just a reaction to the excesses of Christmas week.

"If it is a result of New Year resolutions, the resolutions appear not to be kept for long - because within three weeks the peak of sales has declined back to the average winter level."

In the first week of January 2007 The Greenery shipped 20 per cent more than its average weekly winter volume of tomatoes and cucumbers - that is several hundred additional tonnes of tomatoes.

To ensure that supermarkets can meet the demands of shoppers with a short-term appetite for fresh produce at the start of 2008, The Greenery is scheduling harvesting of salad vegetables over the Christmas period so that they can be delivered to stores immediately after the holidays. This has meant planning well in advance to ensure that growers have sown crops under glass in time to meet the post-Christmas rush.

The Greenery is one of Europe's major producers and importers of fresh fruit and vegetables with an average annual turnover of approximately 1.9 billion euros. It supplies produce to almost all of the major UK supermarkets and to similar outlets in Europe, North America and the Far East. Around 1,700 people are employed by the company across the globe.

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