Fresh - fruit & veg 2025: Record heat fuels boom in berry sales

Weather records were smashed in 2025. The UK’s warmest and sunniest spring made way for the hottest summer on record. Conditions in the south and east were also some of the driest in living memory.

The effect on fresh fruit & veg sales is clear. “Variable weather resulted in a glut for fruit and salad and quality and quantity issues for vegetables in equal measure,” says Lisa Rees, NIQ retail services team leader. “Strawberries, blueberries and raspberries continue to be strong performers.”

Hot summer days call for berries by the bucket-load and ideal growing conditions throughout the spring meant there was no shortage of UK-grown berries to go round. The warm and sunny spring also led to larger and higher quality berries, trade body British Berry Growers (BBG) reported.

Hence the 13.7% boom in combined value sales of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and other berries. Units have surged 9.3%. That’s an extra 87.7 million packs sold, by far the greatest absolute volume growth in fresh fruit & veg sales.

“Retailers were really supportive,” says Nick Marston, chairman of the BBG, whose growers reported a 27% hike in strawberry yields in May. Growth is “great news as it shows just how much people like berries”.

Other UK-grown fruit fared less well. Apples and pears, for example, were alone among the top 10 bestselling fruits in seeing a decline in units sold over the full year. Apples volumes are down 0.6%, while pears have slumped 1.4%.

“This is slightly unsurprising because we did have such a cracking summer,” says Ali Capper, executive chair of British Apples & Pears. “We had such fabulous weather so berries were first choice for consumers who can afford to have that choice.”

For those who don’t, there’s always bananas. Value sales have grown 1.9% on units up 3.7%, making bananas – the UK’s bestselling fruit in unit terms – the only fruit that has seen average prices decline this year.

“Banana prices are low so we’re seeing some consumers switching from other products into bananas,” says John Hopkins, MD of Fyffes UK.

Salad sales also typically rise when the sun is shining, as illustrated by the sector’s 6.2% value and 4% unit gains. Only one of the UK’s top five bestselling salad items has failed to grow unit sales in the past year: lettuce is down 0.8%.

Avocados have done particularly well, adding 15% to their value sales on units up 14.1%. “They’re nowhere near as expensive as they used to be,” says Iain Hughes, Fresca Group senior category marketing manager. Improved affordability in recent years has been driven by increased production, he explains, adding that avocados now have 44% household penetration in the UK – though that remains skewed to the south of the country.

Food trends are also playing their part. “Avocados have benefited from our love affair with Mexican food and healthy eating,” says Rees at NIQ. Sales of fresh herbs and bagged salads have been buoyed by growing demand for convenient, fresh and healthy food, she adds.

Hughes notes that retailers are increasingly using different varieties of salad items to encourage shoppers to trade up to more premium options. “We currently use our brand to showcase unique and unusual products and to launch innovation into a category, particularly for items with a short season,” he says.

He adds that tomatoes are particularly appropriate for tiered offerings because they are grown in indoor environments that are “controlled and high-tech”, meaning the crop quality can be more uniform. It helps explain why tomatoes are the UK’s bestselling salad item with value sales up 3.9% to just shy of £1.1bn on units up 2.4%.

Veg sales slide

Most veg growers don’t have the luxuries enjoyed by tomato producers. “Growers are taking an increasingly cautious approach to planting programmes as the risks linked to climate change intensify,” says Ketan Dave, Barfoots sourcing director. “With tighter margins and less room for error, surpluses are smaller and yield losses from adverse weather are prompting further investment in irrigation and crop protection.”

Barfoots is now moving away from land without irrigation capabilities because of the risk posed by the UK’s increasingly erratic rainfall. Dry weather has been a particular issue for carrot and potato growers this year. Unit sales for the former remained flat while falling 2.3% for the latter.

Peppers, onions, mushrooms, cauliflower and asparagus also suffered unit declines. However, broccoli – up 9.1% in value and 5.4% in units – bucked the general decline as shoppers switched to “affordable yet high-quality alternatives”, says Dave.

As for the coming year, Rees expects “cuisine and health trends [to] continue to dictate popularity.” But she offers a word of warning: “Macro factors such as weather, seasonality and production costs will continue to impact on shelf pricing and availability.”