Strawberry boxes for Valentine's Day soon on the shelves

Soon it will be Valentine's Day again, which also stimulates the creativity of a lot of entrepreneurs. Products are presented in beautiful, captivating, and, of course, romantic packaging.

In recent years, there have been many marketing initiatives, also by fruit and vegetable companies, to use the day as an opportunity to increase sales by offering part of the catalog in original themed packaging.

Heart-shaped punnet with Sabrosa-Candonga strawberries

Italian cultivation company Scarnato, for example, has been offering its customers heart-shaped packaging with strawberries of some early and mid-early varieties for four years now. We talked about it with Claudio and Vincenzo Scarnato, sales and cultivation managers, respectively, of the Scanzano Jonico-based company, which has an area of around 100 hectares, 14 of which are dedicated to strawberry cultivation.

"In February 2019, we launched this idea in a few markets, starting with very small quantities. Initially, it was not easy to find that specific packaging. For its supply, we even had to turn to foreign companies. Over the years, sales volumes gradually grew. The biggest orders naturally take place during the week of Valentine's Day, but the first calls come in as early as the end of January."

Claudio and Vincenzo Scarnato

"Only large strawberries, averaging 30 grams or more, are placed in the romantic 400-gram pack. We also use this packaging for other holidays, such as Women's Day and Mother's Day. The fruit thus becomes an important part of the celebration as a tasty and healthy gift. Because strawberry is, of course, a healthy food and not at all a junk food that is now ubiquitous in our contemporary diet," concluded the two brothers.

Scarnato supplies the heart-shaped pack of strawberries to several Italian supermarket chains and also to some wholesale markets in northern Italy.