In Brescia, berries are well represented on the shelves of large-scale retailers: availability is full and there are very large formats, often half-kilo packs for blueberries and 200-gram packs for blackberries and raspberries, with very competitive prices.
In terms of quality, blackberries and raspberries are very good, with Italy as the main origin, but also Morocco and Spain, while for blueberries from Morocco and Spain some shelf-life issues are beginning to emerge, although the lots are generally recent, with product processed this week.
By contrast, product from northern Italy is struggling to get started, with no availability yet on shelves, while there continues to be a fair availability of blueberries from southern Italy.
This is the key summary of the findings of the Berry Observatory, which today, 3 June 2026, focused on the urban area of Brescia. In particular, the Berry Observatory covered 18 stores belonging to 18 retail banners and 15 large-scale retail groups: Aldi, Conad, Conad Superstore, Coop, Dpiù, Esselunga, Eurospin, Famila Superstore, In's, Iper Tosano, Ipercoop, Italmark, Lidl, MD, Migross, Penny, Prix, Rossetto.
Assortment: 4.6 SKUs per store
In the berry category, the stores visited offered from a minimum of two to a maximum of eight SKUs, with an average of 4.6 SKUs per store.
94% of the stores visited had raspberries in their assortment; 100% blueberries; 72% blackberries; 17% redcurrants; 22% had duo packs and 6% mixed packs.
Range breadth
28% of the stores with berries in their assortment had two or three SKUs, while the remaining 72% of stores had four or more SKUs.
Quality
Quality refers to product condition, measured in terms of: absence of significant defects; healthy product but not in ideal condition (not fresh, tired, shrivelled, dull, without bloom); presence of damaged fruit and juice; presence of spoiled fruit and mould.
The groups with the best quality were Esselunga, Eurospin, Gruppo PAM, Prix.
Retail prices
Raspberries (23 records): min. 11.92 euros/kg – max. 23.92 euros/kg – average 17.64 euros/kg
Blueberries (49 records): min. 9.58 euros/kg – max. 21.75 euros/kg – average 14.06 euros/kg
Blackberries (13 records): min. 11.92 euros/kg – max. 19.95 euros/kg – average 16.33 euros/kg
Redcurrants (3 records): min. 31.84 euros/kg – max. 36.72 euros/kg – average 33.49 euros/kg
Trio packs (7 records): min. 19.87 euros/kg - max. 25.20 euros/kg - average 22.25 euros/kg.
Overall total (95 records): min. 9.58 euros/kg – max. 36.72 euros/kg – average 16.45 euros/kg.
Brands
Across the stores visited, berries from a total of 28 brands were present. The brand with the highest average prices in the category was Naturama. The brand with the lowest average prices for blueberries was Anecoop, followed by Cuna De Platero.
Packaging
31% of the references recorded for blueberries were sold in packs with a net weight of 125 grams.
