Smart Choice
Educating the consumer
Mr McInness explains the concept. "Using ripeSense is like turning a pear into a banana. Everyone knows what colour they like when they buy and eat bananas, and the ripeSense label effectively gives customers the same knowledge for other fruit."
By educating consumers about the produce, fruit sales are expected to rise, which is good news for both supermarkets and fruit growers.
"Our goal, underneath what we've got to do as a business, is to grow fruit sales," says Mr McInness. "So when we do our research we ask 'how much more would you buy?' And people say much more. Much more could mean I'm going to buy it twice this month instead of once, and that's doubling the volume."
In fact, ripeSense consumer research shows that when people buy the product, they will inevitably buy more fruit. Sales figures of pears from test markets in the United Kingdom have shown five to seven per cent growth. Although those figures don't sound like much, in a spontaneous purchase category like pears it is significant.
Mr McInness believes that the greatest barrier to making the product a global success is awareness.
"The biggest challenge is to clearly indicate there's a sensor on this product, because people aren't walking into a supermarket expecting to see it."
Educating the customer is a primary focus. However, even those customers who inadvertently pick up a ripeSense product are more than likely to buy it again, once they realise what it is and that it actually works.
