Talking shop: there are now plenty of exciting, less familiar varieties of fresh produce on the market, but the old favourites remain the most popular with British shoppers, says Caterina Gerlotto, senior associate director at Harris Interactive

Grocer, April 5, 2008 by Caterina Gerlotto

Today's dinner plates offer a throwback to 70s Britain, with most consumers favouring indigenous fruit end vegetable staples over exotic options.

Harris Interactive decided to find out precisely whet vegetables people prefer to eat. Despite the amount of choice they have, it seems they ore a conservative bunch. A survey of 2,000 adults indicated the potato was eaten the most (87%), closely followed by carrots (80%) and onions (76%). These old-school shopping baskets also contained plenty of bananas (the number one fruit at 71%) and apples (number two at 61%).

So who is eating the more unusual superfoods? Hedonistic young things? Actually, no. For all but two of the 23 fruits listed, those over 55 were eating significantly more melons, raspberries, blueberries, grapefruits and apricots than their younger counterparts.

We asked if people were eating more of a particular fruit or vegetable. Just 25% said they were, with no significant age variations. Bananas and apples again featured at the top--perhaps an indication of on increased effort to eat 5a-Day- but blueberries did appear in third place (4%).

While conservatism prevails, the 5-a-Day message is getting through loud and clear. When we asked how many portions of fruit people hod eaten each day over the post few days, the mean number was seven. This suggests today's consumer is making u conscious effort to eat more healthily.

Twenty per cent indicated they were eating more of certain vegetables--broccoli (1%), carrots (2%), sweetcorn (3%), and sweet potato (4%)--all fairly significant sources of vitamin C.

The 55 year-olds might take most of the plaudits for their healthy habits, but what are 16 to 24-year-old consumers eating? They, too, ore predominantly eating apples and bananas, but they are also the age group eating the most oranges on a regular basis. Perhaps this is become they (wrongly) perceive oranges to be the fruit to hove the highest vitamin C content per 100 grams (57%).

Some 42% of the total sample surveyed are supplementing their diets with vitamins and/or minerals, the most popular being cod liver oil (19%). Multivitamins (16%) and vitamin C (11%) follow, although this figure rises to 16% among the apparently nutritionally confused 16-24 year olds.