The free online Harvest to Home dashboard has once again been updated with this month’s retail data, giving you the latest insights into vegetable lines are performing in Australia’s supermarkets.

Nielsen Australia, which delivers the dashboard using funding from Hort Innovation, has identified three key highlights from this month’s findings.

Leafy Asian vegetables

Last month, the data showed that dollar sales for leafy Asian vegetables had grown by 5.9 per cent over the previous 12 months. Nielsen has identified that dollar sales have now grown 7.3 per cent over the past year, continuing this growth trend.

While purchases are skewed towards ethnic households, non-ethnic households are driving growth. The major supermarkets are under-represented when it comes to sales of leafy Asian vegetables, suggesting there’s more opportunity for the category.

Cucumber

Despite a price premium of over 300 per cent, baby cucumbers are continuing to gain traction, showing that innovation and strong positioning as a premium product can translate into success for vegetable lines.

Eggplant

The future looks bright for eggplant, with solid growth in dollar sales and volumes sold over the past year. More households purchased eggplant over the past year than the year prior, and there’s plenty of potential for growth, with only 23 per cent of Australian households currently buying.

For more information on the opportunities that exist for growing eggplant’s consumer appeal, take a look at this case study developed in a levy-funded project, where Workshop Australia mapped out how industry could tap into emerging dietary trends to increase consumption of eggplant.

Don’t forget to bookmark the free Harvest to Home dashboard and check in regularly to see the latest insights about the performance of your vegetable lines.

You can also keep up with the resources produced through projects funded by the vegetable research and development levy on the Hort Innovation website.

This post appeared in the AUSVEG Weekly Update published 31 July 2018. Subscribe to the Update using our online form to receive the latest industry news in your inbox every week!

MT17017 Vegetable Cluster Consumer Insights Program has been funded by Hort Innovation using the onion, sweetpotato and vegetable research and development levies and contributions from the Australian Government. Hort Innovation is the grower-owned, not-for-profit research and development corporation for Australian horticulture.