Bananas are the nation’s most popular fruit, with nine out of 10 Australian households purchasing bananas in the past year, Nielsen research has outlined.
“On average, Australian households bought almost 20kgs of bananas in the past 12 months. Lower prices has encouraged consumers to buy [the fruit] more frequently, so essentially households received much more banana for their buck,” Sarah McKee, associate director, Client Services at Nielsen explained.
“There is a real opportunity for retailers to drive growth for bananas by focusing marketing efforts on engaging the younger demographic.”
Findings in Nielsen’s revealed that bananas sell more volume than any other fruit and has the highest number of households purchasing (94%); more than apples (89%), citrus fruit (89%), berries (87%) and stone fruit (79%).
Falling banana prices has, however, contributed to an almost 8% (7.7%) decline in total dollar sales, causing bananas to drop to second place in value and pushing berries into top place. Consumers are now spending almost $55 ($54.47) on bananas, down by $5.82 in the last year, but they received an extra kilo’s worth.
Young transitionals (under 35s with no children) added two kilograms to bananas to their volume spend and increased their purchase frequency by two trips over the past year. Young families (families with children under 11) increased their average volume by 1.2 kgs and increase their purchase frequency by more than one occasion.
“By encouraging these households to increase the amount of bananas they buy in a year by 1kg at the current price, there is a $6.6 million growth prize up for grabs,” McKee concluded.
