With price points being a major barrier to berry sales, the industry has a tremendous growth opportunity by looking at the value of the product and the sector to better appeal to consumers.

George Margin, Consumer Insights Manager at Hort Innovation, explains that people shop less often than they did a few years ago, and while consumers see berries as healthy and refreshing, they also find retail prices too high. He says it's important for the industry to continue to attract consumers and still make a profit.

"It's a really difficult environment when the biggest barrier to purchasing is that people find the product too expensive," he said. «We see that households appear to be price sensitive; When we see higher prices than a year ago, we see that sales are lower. But we've been working with Fiftyfive5, where we're tracking consumer attitudes over time. Overall (across all fruit categories) consumers believe that the produce they purchased was worth what they paid for, this is simply due to the generally positive attitudes associated with fresh produce as they know it is healthy and good for them. Berries are ranked lowest among major fruit products; "Only 71 percent thought the berries were worth what they paid."

It comes as production wise; Berries have been doing a “fantastic job”, with a significant increase in value and volume, although there has been a slight stagnation in recent seasons. In the last year, berry volume has decreased by 7,5%, driven by the two main commodities: strawberries and blueberries. In the last three years, berries have performed slightly better than the entire fruit category in general in terms of value and volumes, but sales are quite similar to those of two years ago.

He added that the Australian berry category has lost about $50 million in retail value in the last two years and about five million kilograms (5 kilotons).

"Berries as a whole are down five percent," Margin said. “Where that decline is coming from is seven percent in volume, but we are actually seeing an increase in average retail prices. This is a constant story that we are seeing in all berry varieties. We are seeing prices increase and volumes decrease. What we can see is that the decrease comes from frequency, so people buy berries less frequently. When we look at the different varieties, the driving berry varieties are blueberries and strawberries, and people are buying them less; strawberries are declining by 5,8 percent and blueberries are declining by 13,5 percent. “There seem to be unique challenges with blueberries.”