LOS ANGELES, CA – There’s never a wrong season for healthy eating, and while the holidays can be a challenge due to endless parties with sweets, sweets, and more sweets, Wonderful Halos Mandarins are back to put freshness in holiday feasting. Here to make it easier to choose delicious, healthy options, Wonderful Halos are taking over produce aisles and beyond with its Grove of Goodness displays, which The Wonderful Company attributes to Wonderful Halos success this season.

I caught up with The Wonderful Company’s Vice President of Marketing, Adam Cooper, to chat about Wonderful Halos’ start of season and new POS display program that is changing the way retailers and consumers alike interact with Wonderful Halos.

“Wonderful Halos is off to the fastest start to the season yet,” Adam tells me. “We’re experiencing growth now over our previous record and we really think that is due to our new POS display program, ‘Grove of Goodness.’ We have over 12,000 of our displays out in stores now, which has helped us with our regular season and our biggest Thanksgiving week ever. Continuing to lead the mandarin category, we are now, since the start of season, 85% bigger than the next biggest brand.”

Kicking off in early November, Wonderful Halos saw a 13% increase in sales in the first six weeks compared to last season, with consumption in Total U.S. Food up 15% from Thanksgiving last year. And while the sweet and juicy mandarins themselves have garnered a wide following, the grove-to-store tractor and grove tree displays are drawing in impulse buyers–who make up 60% of the variety’s purchases–choosing kid-approved, fresh options.

“We’ve really seen retailers take advantage of these displays, going above and beyond in finding new, innovative ways to bring the tractor and tree displays to life,” Adam shares. “Not only in produce, but even outside of the produce aisle, we’ve seen aisles like deli, bakery, and even the pharmacy become great places to offer healthy options, like Wonderful Halos. We’ve also seen some of the more progressive retailers, who’ve taken note that 80% of our shoppers look for healthier options at check-out, go as far as bringing our Halo Trees into the checkout area. And we’ve seen them fly off the shelf as a result.”

The Grove of Goodness POS display brings the mandarin grove into grocery stores with its Halos trees and tractor standalone displays. Shoppers can pick merchandized bags of Halos from the planter boxes or pull 3 and 5 pound Halos bags from the tractor trailer beds. With endless set-up options for retailers, including winding the tractor trailer around the produce aisle and store, or combining it with other display vehicles retailers have, stores with displays have performed a two-time velocity over stores without displays.

Along with the successful POS displays, the Wonderful Company has seen overall forward momentum thanks to marketing and social media campaigns, like 2017’s Good Choice Kid, which ran earlier this year.

“The display certainly helps drive the conversion in the store, but we’ve also made an effort to start communicating with consumers before they get to the store, too,” Adam continues. “The biggest marketing campaign in produce was our $25 million campaign for Wonderful Halos. We also have a meaningful TV program that reaches both families and our new expanding adult snacker target. I think this year one of the new things we did was our first social media campaign ever where we sent a huge dedicated blast announcing that Halos were available that reached 70 million consumers. Everything we’re doing is driving consumers into stores, and then the POS is ensuring that they don’t miss the Halos, helping to drive the higher velocity.”

As Wonderful Halos mandarins continue to grow, the Wonderful Company brings more retailers cart-stopping innovative displays and merchandizers can work with store managers to bring more value to the produce department.

With the Wonderful Halos season just gearing up, AndNowUKnow will continue to report on Wonderful Halos and produce industry season success.

The Wonderful Company