National Retail Report - April 11

From the USDA's National Retail Report of April11: (See spreadsheet at bottom of blog for more context)

Ads Celebrate Spring and Passover
Warmer weather has many retailers featuring ads related to the backyard barbeque, such as meat for grilling and soft drinks. There was also a wide variety of items associated with the upcoming Passover holiday that were advertised prominently this week. Retailers continued to feature an assortment of organic items this week. In addition to those in this report, ads for organic mangoes, avocadoes, cauliflower, eggplant, romaine hearts, and zucchini were noted.
There was almost an equal amount of fruit and vegetable ads this week, with fruit ads appearing slightly more. Overall, fresh produce ad activity increased over 8 percent compared to last week. Fruits were featured 19 percent more often, while vegetables were featured 5 percent less often than last week. The most notable change was a nearly three-fold
increase in ads for Red Delicious apples. The top 5 items this week were: strawberries, grapes, asparagus, mangoes, and cantaloupe. In addition, several retailers used the change in season to sell cleaning products by promoting a “Spring Cleaning” theme.

Fruits as Percentage of Total Fruit Ads April 11, 2008
Watermelon, seedless 1%
Watermelon, mini 4%
Strawberries, organic 5%
Strawberries 15%
Plums 1%
Pineapple 4%
Peaches 1%
Pears, bartlett 9%
Oranges, navel 3%
Nectarines, yellow flesh 1%
Mangoes 10%
Bananas 0%
Apples, red delicious 8%
Avocadoes, hass 8%
Blueberries 1%
Cantaloupe 10%
Clementines 0%
Grapes, green/red 15%
Limes 0%
Honeydew 2%
Lemons 1%
Grapefruit, red 3%


Vegetables as Percentage of Total Vegetable Ads April 11, 2008
Sweet Potatoes 1%
Tomatoes 3%
Tomatoes, organic 0%
Tomatoes on the vine 9%
Tomatoes, grape 5%
Tomatoes, grape organic 4%
Lettuce, iceberg 2%
Cucumbers 7%
Corn 6%
Celery 3%
Carrots, baby organic 3%
Carrots, baby 7%
Cabbage 3%
Broccoli, organic 1%
Beans, round green 3%
Broccoli 4%
Lettuce, romaine 3%
Squash, zucchini 8%
Peppers, bell red 4%
Potatoes, russet 4%
Peppers, bell green 3%
Onions, sweet 7%
Onions, yellow 4%
Mushrooms, white 4%
Asparagus 12%

Challenges for Wal-Mart

Jack Shewmaker, former chief financial officer of Wal-Mart, spoke April 11 at the World Retail Congress, delivering remarks reported here at Propertyweek.com. Some of what he said.

‘The luxury of not doing anything to a store for 15 years doesn’t exist any more – it’s down to less than five,’ Shewmaker argued. 'You need to take your cap-ex budget apart and make sure you’re rejuvenating your core business.’‘‘If you’ve got the same model you had five years ago, I’d take another look,’ he said. ‘The customer is changing. You’ve got to put your vote in the merchandise categories that are important to today’s consumer.’

TK: A vote for Fresh & Easy, perhaps?

More RSS links in the Widget box

I've added some functionality to the "Widget" box under the fruit/veggie guru ad on the right. Check on the menu of the widget and you can see other RSS feeds I have added to the box, beyond the Fresh Talk headlines. Got any RSS feeds you want me to add to the box - let me know.

Another link for you - Packer pubs future issues calendar

For reader service, I've added a link to The Packer's futures issues calendar on Fresh Talk. The link is under the heading "The Packer/Fresh Talk Info." For both traders who devotedly read the special sections and suppliers who advertise, it is good to know what is coming up....