Anne-Marie Roerink, president of 210 Analytics, says she looks into a lot of trends within the food space, from candy, to deli, snacks, meat and, of course, produce. And she joins “The Packer Podcast” to share some of the recent trends she’s seen in fresh produce. Roerink says in the latest “What’s New?” research that she presented at the 2025 Southeast Produce Council’s Southern Innovations showed some surprising results.
Roerink says it’s no secret fruit has been outperforming vegetables in the produce category, but this year’s data shows an even bigger divide.
“As of pretty much January, the beginning of this year, all of a sudden, we saw that fruit started to accelerate in terms of growth, and we saw that vegetables just started to decline year or month after month in terms of dollars, units and pounds,” she says. “The trends that we had been seeing for five years all of a sudden started to really bifurcate in that fruit excelled even more, and vegetables started to pull back even more.”
Roerink says it’s important to look at the generational trend around fruit and vegetable trends to better understand what’s going on. Millennials make up about 60% to 70% of new unit growth, she says, while baby boomers’ fruit and vegetable dollars are down.
“Millennials are growing their vegetable engagement, but fruit is growing at double the rate, and that’s why we’re seeing such enormous strength in things like berries, organic bananas, citrus fruits,” she says. “I think we’ve got some work to do as the vegetable industry. Fruit is growing nicely, but to see all the main commodities and the smaller ones down year on year in terms of volume, that just means that we have an opportunity to engage with millennial consumers.”
And digging deeper, she says a lot of that growth in millennials is driven by a change in shopping habits when compared with baby boomers.
“[If] you look at millennials and Gen Z as well, and you see that all their inspiration is digital, and it’s led by YouTube, Instagram, TikTok is in the mix, and even Facebook is in the mix,” she says. “All of a sudden, you start to realize that that’s an opportunity right there. How can we elevate the profile of vegetables, all the goodness that they bring in terms of health and functional benefits and start to make sure that vegetables are part of those recipes, in addition to, of course, fruit, because we don’t want to see that decline.”
Roerink says it’s also important to understand the taste preferences of millennials and Gen Z, who are more likely to embrace global flavors when preparing meals. While both boomers and millennials might gravitate toward Asian flavors, most boomers flock toward traditional Chinese dishes and millennials look to Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese flavors, which she says is a great opportunity for retailers to bring new vegetables into the stores.
“That’s explaining why we’re seeing such a surge in things like avocados and cilantro and even some of the Chinese vegetables, cabbage and what have you,” she says. “Asian cuisines are coming into the mix as well, and that’s a huge opportunity, in my mind, for vegetables and to really authentically create those dishes that are popular.
Another reason fruit tracks higher than vegetables in millennial and Gen Z spending is those generations are parents whose children prefer fruit to vegetables.
“It really became clear that children are preferring fruit, and that for the most part, millennial parents say, as long as it’s fresh produce, if it’s fruit, a little bit more than veggies, I’m okay with that,” she says.
But she says in her research, she found that millennial and Gen Z parents want information on how to better incorporate fresh vegetables into their children’s diets. And while children are picky eaters, another barrier to vegetable consumption is many families are on the go.
“We also have to really keep in mind that produce goodness, so the vitamins, the minerals, the fibers, can be consumed in many ways these days,” she says. “If you look at millennials engaging with things like smoothies or those little pouches where you can drink out of or shots or supplements, you know millennials over-index for all of those. There is enormous focus on the importance and the benefit of fresh produce, but it doesn’t always translate into consuming the fresh produce, and especially different fresh vegetables.”
She says this is an opportunity to engage with children to help drive produce consumption. That could be as easy as being active on social media platforms, creating kid-friendly recipes with vegetables and incorporating vegetables into grocery store children’s programs.
“If you think about how many retailers have those programs where you can grab a free piece of fruit, whether that’s a banana or an orange, right, or an apple, but it’s always fruit,” she says.
