In Padua, the shelves are well stocked with fresh lots of berries in general. Rising prices and limited product availability have led to a reduction in shelf space.
Peru is more present, although Poland remains strong, and there are also well-preserved Italian products.
The quality is good, production lots are fresh, and the first blackberries from Mexico are starting to appear, confirming the end of the European season. There are also many brands, a sign of a rich market with solid demand.
These are some of the findings of the Berry Retail Monitor (and Strawberry Retail Monitor), which on September 16, 2025, stopped in Padua, a city where 20 stores from 20 banners belonging to 14 large-scale retail groups were visited.
These are the banners: Aldi, Alì, Alìper, Conad City, Conad Superstore, Coop, Eurospar, Eurospin, Famila, iN's, Iper Spar, Iperlando, Lidl, MD, Pam, Prix, Rossetto, Spazio Conad, Super A&O.
At the time of the visit, berries were not available at Spak.
Assortment: 3.6 references per store
In the stores visited, there were between a minimum of two and a maximum of six references, with an average of 3.7 references.
95% of stores carried raspberries; 100% carried blueberries; 58% carried blackberries; 32% carried red currants, and 26% carried mixed packs.
Range breadth: four or more references in 58% of stores
Let’s see how these references are distributed. 47% of the stores with berries in their assortment had two or three references; the remaining 53% had four or more references on sale.
Quality
Quality refers to the health of the product, measured by the Observatory technicians in terms of: absence of significant defects; healthy product but in less-than-ideal condition (not fresh, tired, withered, dull, without bloom); presence of damaged fruit and juice; presence of rotten fruit and mold.
The groups with the best quality were Aldi, F.lli Lando, Lidl, MD and Selex.
Retail prices
Raspberries (21 records): min. €18.00/kg – max. €27.92/kg – average €22.60/kg
Blueberries (33 records): min. €11.60/kg – max. €23.92/kg – average €18.09/kg
Blackberries (11 records): min. €15.84/kg – max. €23.92/kg – average €21.07/kg
Red currants (6 records): min. €10.32/kg – max. €23.92/kg – average €17.75/kg
Mixed packs (5 records): min. €19.93/kg – max. €23.87/kg – average €20.72/kg
Overall total (76 records): min. €10.32/kg – max. €27.92/kg – average €19.91/kg.
16 brands
In the stores visited, berries from a total of 20 brands were found. The brand with the highest average prices was Pam. The brand with the lowest average blueberry prices was Scandola, followed by Widmann.
Packs
48% of the blueberry references recorded were sold in net weight packs of 125 grams.
