Consumer Reaction to the «Flavour Group Concept» to introduce Scab Resistant Apple Varieties into the Market. «Variety-Teams» as a Further Development of the Concept

Summary

A tool to ease the market introduction of scab resistant apple varieties in supermarkets, is the so-called «Flavour Group Concept (FGC; Weibel and Grab, 2000) that has been developed by FiBL and «Coop» (second biggest supermarket retailer of Switzerland) already in 1995. The FGC is providing to the buyers additional information on the specific flavour direction of that "unknown" apple cultivar in front of them (mild to sweet; spicy-tart; predominantly tart). In 2002 a consumer behaviour study was undertaken by «IHA/GfK-Switzerland» Institute to evaluate the consumer response to the FGC.
The results reveal that 36 % of the persons interviewed at the point of sale considered additional information on the flavour direction of the apple cultivars as «important» and 40 % as «very important». Information on flavour direction was considered as the second important information at the shelf (59 % score), compared to the general presentation of the apples with 78 % score. On basis of these positive results, Coop introduced the FGC also for conventional apples. One year later, also the biggest supermarket retailer of Switzerland «Migros»introduced a FGC for organic and conventional apples.
To develop further the FGC, in the year 2002, a consortium of the supermarket chain Coop Switzerland, organic apple growers, retailers and FiBL experts joined together in a so called «Variety Team». There, in contrast to Variety Clubs, the focus is not a particular variety but the active creation and promotion of an attractive assortment of scab resistant apple varieties in a well co-ordinated and thus for growers and retailers most efficient way. Investments and risks are evenly shared between the Team Partners. The first cultivar promoted is «Ecolette».