British Growers Insights were on the FPC Produce Hub at last week's IFE in London. They offer one of the UK's largest and most up-to-date source of fresh and frozen produce point of sale data.
"We collect point of sale data from the major retailers and supermarkets of fresh produce on a weekly basis, every week of the year," explains Sam Pope, from British Growers Insights. "We collect data such as price, promotions, country of origin and packaging with lots of different point of sale data on each individual item. We also take photos of shelves on supermarkets so suppliers can see where their products are on the shelves and how they are displayed in relation to other people's products."
Customers can subscribe to the data on a category-by-category basis, for example if they are just interested in soft fruit, they just subscribe for that and get data on all soft fruit. There are 24 categories to choose from and customers can pick and choose whatever is relevant to them. Customers can manipulate the data, print it off or export it to get the whatever information they need out of it.
"There are different things you can do with the data, we are trying to push British produce, and we can see how much British produce is on the shelves," added Lyndsay Marfleet. "Our historical data can give insights into how prices have changed so growers can potentially negotiate pricing for a fairer supply price as they know what prices have been for the last however many years. They can also see trends within the data on price, country of origin, anything really.
"Sometimes growers struggle because supermarkets and retailers will change packaging sizes, they can see how that has changed, shrinkflation is a big thing and it is important to know the current pack sizes etc. Importers are also interested in this information as it shows what the share of the market is from point of origin and because it is week by week, they can get a whole picture of what is happening through the year and also seasonal changes."
The platform offers a free two-week trial so people can see what it looks like and it might mean for them.