National Retail Report - Oct. 3

From the USDA's National Retail Report of Oct. 3:


Retailers Focus on Seasonal Produce
Again this week, retailers chose to feature items with a focus on Fall and specifically Halloween celebrations. Many retailers sought to entice customers to buy in bulk and save with “10 for $10”, “12 for $12”, “truckload sales”, and “warehouse sales”. In addition, there were scattered ads promoting October as National Seafood Month as well as promotions for the upcoming Yom Kippur and Columbus Day holidays. Overall this week, fresh produce ads were down nearly 9% and could be attributed to a decline of about 12% on fruit ads and a decline of roughly 7% on vegetable ads. The top 5 of the regularly reported items were: grapes, pears, OTV tomatoes, strawberries, and apples. Despite the decline in ad activity this week, many seasonal items not regularly captured in this report were featured quite heavily. The most notable and widely featured of these items were a variety of apples, pears, and squash. Also of note was the increased ad activity on round red potatoes in 5 lb bags. Round red potatoes were second only to grapes in the number of stores with ads this week. This major increase in ads corresponds to increased availability from major production areas in the Midwest and decreased availability and higher prices of russet potatoes from Idaho.



Fruits as Percentage of Total Fruit Ads -October 3, 2008
Plums 3%
Pineapple 5%
Mangoes 1%
Lemons 1%
Limes 2%
Honeydew 1%
Grapefruit, red 0%
Nectarines 5%
Oranges,navel 2%
Pears, bartlett 14%
Peaches 7%
Strawberries 10%
Strawberries, organic 2%
Watermelon, mini 2%
Apples, red delicious 9%
Avocadoes, hass 6%
Bananas 4%
Grapes, green/red 22%
Bananas, organic 1%
Cantaloupe 7%



Vegetables as Percentage of Total Vegetable Ads - October 3, 2008
Broccoli, organic 1%
Broccoli 5%
Beans, round green 2%
Tomatoes, on the vine 10%
Tomatoes, organic 0%
Tomatoes 6%
Cabbage 4%
Carrots, baby organic 3%
Carrots, baby 6%
Asparagus 6%
Tomatoes, grape organic 1%
Tomatoes, grape 4%
Celery 3%
Corn 1%
Cucumbers 4%
Lettuce, iceberg 4%
Lettuce,romaine 1%
Mushrooms,white 6%
Onions,yellow4%
Sweet Potatoes 3%
Squash, zucchini 4%
Potatoes, russet 3%
Peppers,bell red 5%
Peppers, bell green 8%
Onions, sweet 6%