The Future of Fresh Merchandising | FutureBridge + VivaFresh

The Future of Fresh Merchandising
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Demand is not the problem,
merchandising is.
Consumomics™ analysis reveals the category is operating at 40%-60% of its demand potential, leaving $40-$60 billion in unrealized U.S. demand. Produce generates roughly $100 billion in annual U.S. retail sales and remains the number one driver of store choice for 78% of American consumers. Yet purchasing behavior consistently falls short of that demand potential.
The numbers behind the gap
The following signals highlight a structural gap between consumer interest in produce and actual purchasing behavior
$100B
Annual retail sales
Annual retail sales of fresh produce in the United States
78%
Store choice driver
Shoppers who say produce drives store choice
58%
No purchase trips
Shopping trips that end with no produce purchase
40%
Spoilage rate
Estimated produce that spoils before consumption (30-40%)
Key Findings
Four structural forces reshaping produce demand
The produce category is not constrained by consumer demand. It is constrained by how demand is activated. Consumomics™ identifies four structural forces shaping the next phase of growth.
1. Untapped Demand
The category is leaving nearly half its demand potential unexpressed
The Consumomics™ framework explains produce purchasing through five drivers: Provisioning (price), Emotion (identity), Convenience (friction), Automaticity (habit), and Trust. The critical insight: trust does not add demand. It multiplies it.
Produce with origin transparency, verified freshness, and quality consistency multiplies behavioral output by 2.6 to 2.8 times. At baseline trust (V-score 2.0), the same product delivers roughly half that output.
A commodity tomato with no origin signal or freshness cue generates 40 out of 120 behavioral output. The identical tomato with a farm story, harvest date, and freshness guarantee reaches 70, a 75% lift with no product change or commodity cost increase.
Across the category, this gap averages 12 to 20 behavioral points per product.
The problem is not weak consumer demand. The problem is that the behavioral infrastructure, trust, identity, convenience, and habit, has never been deliberately built.
2. GLP-1 Demand Shift
The GLP-1 revolution is the most significant near-term demand catalyst the category has seen
GLP-1 adoption has grown from 5.5% of U.S. adults in October 2023 to 8.3% by mid-2024, with projections of 12 to 15% by 2027 and up to 30% by 2030. This trajectory exceeds statin rollout and approaches COVID-era vaccine adoption rates.
The current 10 to 12% user cohort already shows a measurable shift:
Total grocery spend: down 5.5%
Produce spend: up 5-10%
Category signals include:
Leafy greens: up 18-24%
Cruciferous vegetables: up 16-22%
Fresh berries: up 12-15%
Pre-portioned formats: up 30-45%
This cohort alone cannot yet reverse category decline. But it clearly signals where the broader consumer is moving, away from price-led purchasing toward identity, outcomes, and trust-verified quality.
At 35 million GLP-1 users by 2027, spending $120 more annually on produce, the national opportunity equals $4.2 billion in incremental revenue.
For a supermarket with $2 million in annual produce sales, this represents roughly $1.5 million in additional revenue if the right assortment exists. Most retailers have not built it.
3. Food-as-Medicine Gap
Fresh produce is losing the food-as-medicine conversation it should be winning
Food purchasing has shifted from generic health claims to outcome-specific benefits.
Other categories now lead with clear outcomes:
Dairy: prebiotics and gut health
Snacks: protein and macronutrients
Functional beverages: adaptogenic and anti-inflammatory bioactives
Each answers the same consumer question:
“What exactly will this do for me?”
Fresh produce, despite strong nutritional science, still answers with “fruit is healthy.”
Consumers seeking support for gut health, cardiovascular risk, cognition, metabolic balance, or weight management cannot find produce positioned for those outcomes. They turn instead to functional foods and beverages.
Consumers have not abandoned health goals. They have simply stopped using produce to achieve them.
This is an execution gap, not a science gap. Research on polyphenols, resveratrol, anthocyanins, and fiber is strong. The science has simply not reached the shelf as consumer-facing claims.
The Grape Case
Grapes illustrate the gap clearly.
The science exists: resveratrol, polyphenols, cardiovascular and gut benefits. Yet grapes remain positioned primarily as snacks, sitting closer to chips than to health-identity foods like berries.
Berries achieved premium pricing and loyalty because the industry built the right behavioral infrastructure: antioxidant messaging, cognitive benefits, and identity as a daily health food.
As consumers shift toward identity, habit, and trust-verified outcomes, the winning product is not the cheapest. It is the one that most clearly delivers a specific health objective.
Grapes have the science. What they lack is the positioning.
4. Trust: The Highest-Return Lever
Trust is the highest-return intervention available, and the most neglected
Trust failures carry disproportionate impact.
One spoilage event: reduces behavioral output 40 to 50% and creates a 35% probability of four-week category avoidance
A food safety incident: creates 60% avoidance probability for eight weeks or longer, often permanently
The opposite dynamic is equally powerful.
Eight consecutive perfect-quality experiences create “V-lock,” producing:
18+ months retention
45% larger baskets
25 to 40% price premium acceptance
Four trust investments show verified retail returns:
Real-time freshness indicators: $0.04-$0.08 per unit
Farm-to-shelf traceability via QR code: $0.08-$0.15 per unit
Smart packaging extending shelf life: 50-70% improvement
In-store freshness monitoring: $15K-$30K per store
Traceability pilots show 18:1 ROI, with $0.15 per unit cost delivering about $2.40 in selling price improvement.
Retailers deploying these tools systematically, Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Wegmans, show 46-60% higher behavioral output than conventional competitors.
The technology exists. The evidence is clear. The industry has simply not prioritized it.
The Framework
Consumomics™ and the PECA-V equation
Consumomics™ models produce purchasing behavior as a function of five neurobiologically grounded drivers. Each maps to a specific decision system and predicts a specific type of behavioral barrier or commercial opportunity.
The full equation, Behavioral Output = (P + E + C + A) × V, has a maximum theoretical score of 120. The average produce item in a conventional supermarket scores approximately 42-46. Best-in-class produce in the most sophisticated departments studied scores 77-87. The gap is not in the product. It is in the behavioral infrastructure surrounding it.
The Consumer
Seven Behavioral Phenotypes
Demographic segmentation, age, income, household size, predicts almost nothing about produce purchasing behavior. Consumomics™ identifies seven behavioral phenotypes representing 94% of produce shoppers. Each has a distinct PECA-V profile, a distinct behavioral trigger, and a distinct response to merchandising, pricing, and communication strategies.
The critical strategic implication: value is not proportional to shopper count. Value Optimizers are 22% of shoppers but generate only 20% of category value. Fresh-or-Nothing Purists are 8% of shoppers but generate 9% of value at $1,960 average annual household spend, more than twice the per-household value of a Value Optimizer. Retailers that allocate space and investment proportionally to shopper count are systematically underfunding their most valuable segments.
The emerging GLP-1 User phenotype, currently 10-12% of adults and growing to 30% by 2030, scores above all seven core phenotypes in behavioral output potential, at approximately 85 out of 120. This is the highest-scoring produce consumer phenotype yet identified, and the current retail produce assortment is built for almost none of their needs.
Evidence From the Market
Retailer case studies: consistent findings
The full report contains six in-depth retailer case studies with verified before/after behavioral scoring. The findings are consistent: every high-performing produce retailer has invested explicitly in at least two of the three highest-return levers, emotional activation through storytelling or identity; trust elevation through transparency or quality guarantee; and convenience reduction through format innovation or subscription. No best-in-class performer relies on price promotion as a primary driver.
The Economics
The ROI of Consumomics™ driven merchandising
The following ROI reflects the integrated deployment of four Consumomics™ merchandising interventions: trust activation (origin transparency and freshness technology), friction elimination (value-added convenience formats), behavioral activation (phenotype-targeted merchandising), and habit formation (subscription and loyalty automation).
For a typical supermarket with $2.0 million in annual produce sales, full implementation of a Consumomics™ driven merchandising program projects the following outcomes:
Category opportunity
If 30% of U.S. retailers adopt Consumomics™ driven merchandising by 2030, produce growth could accelerate from 2.5% to 4.8% CAGR, unlocking $8.5 billion in incremental category value.
Value distribution:
60% retailers
28% growers and shippers
12% technology providers
What the Full Report Contains
The full 8-part report available at Viva Fresh Expo 2026
This executive summary presents the central argument and key findings. The full 8-part report provides the complete evidence base, verified case studies, behavioral scoring methodology, and implementation tools.
01
Part I: The produce paradox
Why the category has operated at 40-60% of demand potential for 30 years, and what conventional frameworks have consistently missed.
02
Part II: The PECA-V framework
Full behavioral science methodology: neurobiological basis for each driver, PECA-V scoring, and worked examples across 12 produce products.
03
Part III: Five forces reshaping demand
GLP-1 revolution; convenience imperative; trust renaissance; sustainability expectation; omnichannel produce, each with verified data and full commercial implications.
04
Part IV: The produce consumer genome atlas
Seven core phenotypes plus five emerging specialist phenotypes, each with complete PECA-V profile, behavioral triggers, pricing strategy, and merchandising playbook.
05
Part V: Retailer case studies
Six major retailers with full before/after PECA-V scoring, specific intervention analysis, and verified financial outcomes.
06
Part VI: Merchandising interventions
Twelve specific interventions across E, C, A, and V genes, each with investment requirements, expected velocity lifts, and verified ROI from retail pilots.
07
Part VII: The economics of demand engineering
Per-phenotype value modeling, total store halo analysis, intervention ROI tables, and category-level opportunity sizing through 2030.
08
Part VIII: Implementation roadmap
90-day quick-win plan, 6-12 month fleet transformation, and multi-year platform leadership roadmap, with measurement framework and organizational requirements.
Access the full report >
Connect with FutureBridge Team
Meet the author
Richard Kottmeyer
As Group Chief Strategy Officer and Global Practice Lead for Food, Agriculture & Nutrition at FutureBridge, my work has been shaped by more than two decades of leadership across complex, regulated, and innovation-driven industries. The focus has consistently been on helping organizations navigate structural shifts in demand, regulation, and technology with greater clarity and confidence. What defines this approach is a combination of strategic rigor, practical insight, and a strong orientation toward outcomes. Deep experience across food, agriculture, and nutrition continues to inform the way clients assess change, unlock opportunity, and make critical decisions in evolving markets.