Melissa’s unleashes Freaky Fruit for Halloween
Add Fresh Fruit Portal to GoogleWhile the candy aisle usually haunts October retail sales, specialty produce displays are brewing up their own seasonal spookiness.
Melissa’s Produce is bringing back its annual Freaky Fruit program to retail produce departments throughout this month, offering buyers and produce managers a strategy to capture impulse sales as the summer fruit season concludes.
"Freaky Fruit has always been about making produce fun and getting people excited to try something new," said Melissa’s Director of Public Relations, Robert Schueller.
Designed to capitalize on the shift in the seasonal produce calendar, the campaign highlights unusual tropical and specialty varieties such as kiwano melons, finger limes, pink dragon fruit, Buddha’s hand, rambutan, passion fruit, cherimoya, starfruit, and papaya.
"Halloween is the perfect time for it. Rambutan and dragon fruit make great edible eyeballs, kiwano can become a shrunken head, and all those wild colors and shapes are perfect for spooky drinks, snacks, and party boards," the executive noted.
Select commodities within the lineup, including rambutans, starfruit, guava, goldenberries, kumquats, and Muscatos grapes, feature themed Freaky Fruit branded packaging for the promotional period.
Freaky Fruit’s sidekick
The seasonal program extends beyond tropical fruit items to include vegetable categories under the Melissa’s Vicious Veg label, which features items such as aloe vera.
The line provides retailers with point-of-sale merchandising options designed to draw consumer foot traffic into the produce section ahead of the holiday.
The specialty produce supplier confirmed that the program materials and fruit assortments are currently available to retail partners through direct sales representatives for October merchandising displays.
*All photos courtesy of Melissa's Produce.
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