Research and Markets: Fruit & Vegetables Market Report 2011 - Price Increases will Continue over the Next Few Years

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/e16d10/fruit_vegetables) has announced the addition of the "Fruit & Vegetables Market Report 2011" report to their offering.

The UK market for fresh fruit and vegetables was worth an estimated 9.52bn in 2010, representing a 4.3% increase on 2009 figures and a 29.5% increase on 2006. The UK, along with a number of other countries, has been severely affected by rising food-price inflation in recent years, which has pushed up the cost of fruit and vegetables significantly over the past 5 years, despite pressure on producers to keep prices as low as possible during the recent economic downturn. As with the majority of the food industry, supermarkets dominate sales of fruit and vegetables in the UK.

These large retailers are highly competitive in terms of pricing and thus must be able to purchase produce at the cheapest possible price in order to pass these savings onto the consumer. In this way, the retail price of fruit and vegetables has been mitigated somewhat in spite of the spike in food-price inflation seen in recent years.

The fresh vegetables sector includes products such as salads, root vegetables, brassicas and legumes, while the fresh fruit category includes apples, pears, bananas and citrus fruits. These products continue to provide a fairly robust cornerstone of the UK population's overall diet. Part of this has been down to the Government's long-running and highly successful 5-a-day' campaign, which recommends a diet that consists of five portions of fruit and/or vegetables each day.

However, the campaign was recently extended to include frozen fruits and vegetables, an area of the market that is slowly becoming more of a threat to the fresh produce sector because of its convenience over fresh counterparts, e.g. its longer life.

Companies Mentioned:

• Bakkavr Ltd
• Capespan International Ltd
• Chiquita Brands International Ltd
• Del Monte (UK) Ltd
• Dole Food Company Inc
• Fyffes Group Ltd
• G's Group Holdings Ltd
• The Greenery
• Greenvale AP Ltd
• Soleco UK Ltd
• Total Produce Ltd

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/e16d10/fruit_vegetables