ESTONIA
Nudging consumers to eat more fish and seafood
Promotions are one way to push fresh fish sales The grocery sector in Estonia is served by local as well as international retail chains. Maxima, Prisma, Coop, Rimi, and Selver are among the biggest in terms both of market share and number of stores. Of these Selver and Coop are Estonian, while of the others, Maxima is Lithuanian, Prisma Finnish, and Rimi Swedish.
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etail chains have a high degree of penetration in Estonia and are the destination of choice when shopping for groceries as well as for an increasing number of non-food items. Although it is possible to buy fish from fishmongers, fishermen themselves, or from fish processing establishments that have their own stores, fish and seafood sales are dominated by retail chains particularly in the cities.
Campaign prices for fish attract customers to the stores Maris Rannus, Category Group Manager, says Rimi is one of the leaders in fish retail with almost a quarter of all fish sales in Estonia. Selver, an Estonian chain is responsible for another quarter, while Prisma has 7-8. At Rimi Ms Rannus is frank about what drives fish sales. It is essentially salmon promotions, she says, which are based on three products – whole salmon, salmon fillets, and whole trout. Trout fillets are for some reason not as popular as the other three products. A year ago the promotions used to be every second week, but now that has changed to weekly offers which alternate between whole fish and fillets. The result, she says, has been higher volumes and a growing market share as consumers eat fish more often and purchase
more per shopping trip. The increase in consumption is certainly partly attributable to price. Estonians are cost conscious shoppers, at least when it comes to groceries, and Rimi’s sales data shows that 70 of redfish sales are at the discounted prices. But there are probably other factors at play too. For example, a wider environment that extolls the virtues of eating fish as well as Rimi’s own efforts to nudge consumers towards healthier food choices. These include a health counsellor who talks to customers to create awareness and who
also provides information on the home page about healthful products as well as “health counsellor recommended” signs on certain products.
Extensive assortment of fish and seafood is important for image At Selver, the tactics to persuade consumers to adopt healthier lifestyles including increasing their consumption of fish and seafood are somewhat different. Two years ago Selver decided to do their own seafood counters, says
Maris Rannus, Category Group Manager, Rimi Eesti Food AS
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Katrin Riisalu, Purchasing Director, which since then have a much wider variety of fresh and processed fish and seafood products on display including a number of high value items such as scallops, shrimp, and tuna apart from the more commonly available redfish and whitefish species. The change was partly from a desire to spruceup the company’s image as a retailer for the upper end of the market. Offering a wide variety of fish and seafood products was in keeping with this image, says Ms Riisalu, who over the last year (2018) has seen increases in sales
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13/06/19 9:17 AM