Major herb producer Vitacress has 8 hectares dedicated to pot herb production. The company also sources from selected and approved UK and international suppliers along with production from their own farms in Spain and Portugal.
"Fresh herbs are typically bought by people interested in food and wellbeing," explains Tony Reid, Head of Marketing at Vitacress. "There is a growing opportunity with the younger generation who are becoming more interested in scratch cooking and entertaining.
Overall, unit sales of fresh herbs are up by 3.1% in the past 52 weeks (IRI Grocery Outlets 52 w/c 7th March 2015). Sales of pot herbs specifically are slightly in decline (-5.6% unit sales) as customers opt for cheaper formats in a price sensitive market. Reid said that Vitacress is working to address this through a marketing and PR campaign which focuses on promoting the value of fresh herbs through the benefits they offer to everyday cooking. Recent sales of pots of fresh mint are expected to be strong due to the recent warm weather, but market data is still to come through.
Mint is one of the fastest growing herbs in term of popularity just now. It is in double digit growth – helped by trends for mojitos and similar cocktails. Coriander continues to be the UK’s best selling herb as the popularity of Asian cuisine continues.Vitacress Herbs conducted a report at the end of last year that showed that when it comes to what most influences the food we cook and enjoy at home, cookery books (37%) came top, followed by celebrity chefs and TV cookery programmes (31%) and friends and family (30%).
Sales of fresh herbs are a key indicator of cookery trends and the sales data demonstrated that the UK’s best-selling herb is coriander, followed by parsley, basil and mint.
Analysis of 21 recent top cookery books from chefs such as Yotam Ottolenghi and Jamie Oliver through to Tom Kerridge, supports the herb sales trends with coriander the most referenced herb – 285 mentions across all of the books.
"Traditional herbs such as mint, dill, curly and flat leaf parsley and chives are all experiencing growth in the market. However, a report from Vitacress Herbs, also shows that 40 per cent of people say they are more adventurous in the kitchen and 30 per cent are cooking more dishes inspired by world cuisine, which may explain why there is a slight decline with some traditional herbs such as; rosemary and thyme," according to Reid
"We aim to provide a high quality product which offers good taste, appearance and shelf life. Consumers are always interested in trying something new as well and Vitacress is a market leader in bringing new herbs to market such as a new premium variety of basil called Isabella which was launched as Tesco’s first Finest fresh herb and varieties such as Cinnamon Basil and Summer Savoury," commented Reid when asked how Vitacress adds value to their products. It’s also about giving consumers advice and information about how to get the most from their herbs, from how to use them in cooking – from savoury to sweet – through to how to take care of their herbs. Vitacress has run a PR and marketing campaign over the past four years with these objectives in mind and its latest campaign launching this year called Herbilicious focuses on exciting and enthusing people about fresh herbs and maximising the growing interest from the younger age group with digital activity."Vitacress supplies over 16 million fresh living potted herbs each year and over 23 million packs of fresh cut and bunched herbs per year. All of Vitacress’ pots of living herbs are produced in the UK all year round under glass.
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