Tropical fruit marketers try to play to 'stay-cationers'

Excerpts from an 5/04/2009 article in The Packer by Abraham Mahshie

Tropicals are the luxury consumers can afford themselves when eating out less often, suppliers said, and it is up to retailers to promote properly and take advantage of this window.

Mary Ostlund, marketing director of Brooks Tropicals Inc., Homestead, Fla., said “our papayas sell easily whole, but when you’ve got more than what you can sell, you chop it up into processed or make delicious smoothies with it.”

Ostlund added most of Brooks’ retailers have good sales when they slice a papaya open and cover it with (plastic) wrap. "Customers see it and realize the papaya can be eaten like a melon.”