Sacred & Mundane

Fruit: The Go-To Transitionary Fuel for a Multisensory Experience

by Adam Leith Gollner

Before launching new varieties of fruit, marketers study consumer preferences. Multicolored pie charts reveal what percentages of shoppers like their fruit firm, soft, juicy, tangy, sweet, dry, or moist. Hugeness, once thought to be a key goal, has proven undesirable. Bananas are morning fruits, strawberries are mainly evening fruits. Bananas, apples, and grapes are fruits people like to eat on the go—others require preparation and are prepackaged with that in mind.

According to surveys commissioned by the California Tree Fruit Agreement, the most sought-after fruit demographic is a group called Summer Enthusiasts. What unifies this sunny cabal, alongside their above-average fruit purchases, is an interest in playing sports and (say the following with a robot voice) having new experiences. Summer Enthusiasts “believe having fun is the point of life, think continuing to learn throughout life is very important, believe enjoying life and doing the things they want to do is important.” Over 111 million Americans—in an estimated 53 percent of households—are Summer Enthusiasts.

Another important fruit-buying subset is Light Lifestylers—people who are health conscious and like to exercise. Overlapping somewhat with the Summer Enthusiasts are 72 million Super Moms and Dads—the type who verify ingredients and nutrition stats prior to buying, and for whom family is everything. By far the most elusive segment of the population is Generation Starbucks—youngish people who still believe they are invincible (so health isn’t a purchasing factor). These twenty- and thirtysomethings buy whenever the urge strikes them. Reaching the portion of this group with “positive life attributes” (i.e., not the suicidal, bearded nihilists) requires making fruits available everywhere, like their namesake java.

For all of these various menageries, fruits are pushed as a main ingredient in break-time snacking. Branding gurus want to make fruits a part of transitions from one activity to the next: rejuvenating tide-me-over breaks, midafternoon pick-me-ups, and after-work snacks. To merchandising reps, it doesn’t really matter when these moments happen as long as they become ritualized routines filled with fruit. Once fruits have become ingrained as the go-to transitionary fuel, their multisensory experiential qualities can be leveraged into high-volume snacking. Or something to that effect.

Fruit catchphrases and slogans bandied about in these studies include “little taste adventure,” “delicious handful of goodness,” and my favorite: “the snack that quenches.” Like a lingering stereotype, these studies’ undertones are shrouded in a gauzy cloak of believability. After poring over them for several hours, I badly need a transitionary moment. Despite, or perhaps because of, all the viral jargon, I feel an urge to go to my fridge and eat a peach. It certainly appears to be a “guilt-free treat,” rather than an endorsement of big agriculture. Then I bite into it, my teeth sinking into what feels like wet sand. Not quite the “burst of fun” I was hoping for.