This winter, Lone Star Citrus Growers is revolutionizing the grapefruit category and revitalizing declining sales. Although Texas grapefruit sales are strong and growing, total category consumption has been on a dramatic decline for the past 20 years. With Texas grapefruit offering retailers a high-margin product during the winter months, the Lone Star Citrus team set out to learn why consumers are moving away from grapefruit and how they could reverse the trend. The team began with four months of research, partnering with produce branding strategist Lisa Cork of Fresh Produce Marketing.
“Some of what we learned was expected,” says April Flowers, Lone Star Citrus’ Marketing Director. “We know from our steady sales that consumers prefer our sweet, red Texas grapefruit. We know that our loyal consumers know the differences within the category; they wait for the Texas grapefruit season, and they understand its winter availability.
Simplify packaging
“On the other hand, for non-grapefruit consumers, our potential customers of the future, the grapefruit category is confusing. Different grapefruit look the same, but they can taste very different due to varying states of origin, color and variety. We decided that we had to simplify things in order to capture these potential consumers. We needed to improve our packaging to make it easy for retail customers to select delicious, sweet, Texas red grapefruit, and at the same time, we wanted to change the way consumers thought about, selected and prepared grapefruit…all while having a bit of fun.
Availability and sweetness in winter
“We like to think of it as starting a grapefruit revolution,” says Flowers. So what is the result? “We decided to be very bold in our branding by bringing unique, consumer-focused thinking to the brand naming process. We knew we could simplify things by connecting our fruit seasonally, and since the Texas grapefruit season runs Oct- April, with peak sweetness from Nov- March, it just made sense to include winter in the brand name; thus, our new brand became Winter Sweetz™, which intuitively tells consumers about our availability and our sweetness.
Consumer education
“We also knew we had to educate non-consumers about taste, so we worked hard to provide bold, fun and unique taste cues on pack via talking grapefruit segments.” Adds VP of Operations, TJ Flowers, “in order to truly convert new consumers to loyal consumers, we’ve committed to teaching retail customers how to properly prepare grapefruit by segmenting it. We know that once people eat grapefruit this way, they’re hooked, so we’re determined to educate them. The use of segments on pack, an easy as 1, 2, 3 picture tutorial on our bins and cartons, and QR codes on our bags that jump to a video tutorial all work toward that end.”
Available as of November
“From a sales point of view, retailers that have seen the packaging are excited about the category for the first time in a long time. They can see the sales potential in the Winter Sweetz™ brand, and they understand our goals and vision. We’re looking forward to the season starting and rolling out the new packs in the first week of November,” says VP of Sales, Trent Bishop.
“We welcome retailers who want to join in the grapefruit revolution with Winter Sweetz™. We’ll be using social media and innovative marketing via the #grapefruitrevolution, and by this time next year, we expect to see statistics that show the grapefruit category has turned around and consumption is growing.”
Winter Sweetz™ is scheduled to hit retail shelves on Nov. 1st.
For more information:
Trent Bishop
Lone Star Citrus Growers
9625 N. Moorefield Rd
Mission, TX 78574
Tel: (956) 424-7775