The Retailer Challenge
20% of our shopping baskets should be veg, but in fact it’s a third of that.
Veg is a key differentiator for retail, with a number of opportunities to better promote own-brand veg. What’s more, the wider policy environment is increasingly focused on the influential role that retailers have to play in supporting the healthiness of our shopping baskets, with the National Food Strategy calling for mandatory reporting by large businesses on sales of veg for example.
When Peas Please was launched, just over 7% of the weight of the average shopping basket was composed of vegetables (Kantar). This figure has remained pretty much stagnant ever since. We know, however, that in order to be in line with the government’s Eatwell Guide, 20% of the shopping basket should be made up of veg. Of additional concern are the stark inequalities in the vegetable purchase data, with the amount of vegetables purchased increasing in step with income. Regional inequalities can also be seen from Kantar basket data. In 2020 Londoners purchased more vegetables than those in the North of England; 7.7% of baskets in London were veg compared to 6.6% in the North.
We monitor whether there are any changes to the retail shopping basket when it comes to veg every year in our Peas Please Progress Report.
