People who love Sumo Citrus today might find a new fruit to love tomorrow. “Because we know the customers are hungry for them, and they want them.”īut fruit marketing can be a fickle business. “When you walk in our stores, in a lot of cases, you’re going to see them right at the front door with a great big display,” Callahan said. US sales have jumped around 35% each year since March 2018, according to Nielsen data. Jerry Callahan, group vice president of produce and floral at Albertsons We know the customers are hungry for them, and they want them.” Before the fruit hits the shelves for a period from January to April and again during a brief window in the fall, the brand can generate hype, and then encourage shoppers not to miss their chance to get it. The short selling season that could be a drawback has also been used as an upside, helping the company to build buzz. In its branding, it nods to the fruit’s heritage and to how it’s grown (painstakingly, carefully, with attention paid to each fruit). To make sure people try the product - and back up that price - AC Brands has been spreading the Sumo Citrus gospel. Over the past year, consumers spent nearly $62 million on Sumo Citrus fruits, according to Nielsen, still a small sliver of the $2.1 billion mandarin market. It has built (and built off) buzz from Instagram influencers, and placed splashy magazine ads and targeted billboards to attract consumers willing to shell out up to $4 per pound of fruit. ![]() That could be because over the past two years, AC Brands - confident in both its relationship with retailers and in the size of its crop - invested in a major marketing push to place Sumo in front of the right consumers. Now, once you start paying attention, it may feel like the Sumo Citrus is everywhere. Sumo Citrus mandarins are carefully and meticulously packed. And then once production hit a critical mass, Callahan’s prediction started to come true. There wasn’t much of the fruit to go around, anyway - AC Brands, the company behind Sumo Citrus, started selling its produce here in 2011 and increased its crop over time. ![]() In the years immediately after Callahan took that first bite, the fruit’s popularity grew slowly. It peels easily, thanks in part to that knobby handle, and doesn’t make your fingers too sticky.īut Sumo Citrus didn’t go crazy in the United States, at least not right away. But it’s actually a hybrid of navel oranges, pomelos and mandarins and tastes like an extra-sweet mandarin. The fruit may appear unappealing at first: It looks like a small, wrinkly orange with a knob akin to the top knot worn by the Sumo wrestlers for which it’s named. “The eating experience, there’s just nothing like it,” he said. “This is going to go crazy,” he thought.Īs the group vice president of produce and floral at the grocery store chain Albertsons, Callahan is essentially a produce trend-spotter by trade - and he’s eaten a lot of fruit. When Jerry Callahan had his first bite of a Sumo Citrus fruit about nine years ago, he knew he’d tried something special.
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