How NOT to sell jackfruit

I’m sure most of you are tired of hearing about jackfruit, but consumers aren’t.

Not yet. The Google Trend line is on the way back up again, as more plant-based foods gain popularity, jackfruit is swinging back up, too.

As retailers are trying to puzzle out how to merchandise the “king of fruit,” in a way to will inspire not only trial, but repeat purchase, might I suggest you look for merchandising pointers from people in the know?

Social media can be the best – or worst – thing for a new and trendy item.

Take this frustrated post from a woman named Mei Tan, a native of Malaysia who lives in Hong Kong, according to her Facebook profile. She checked in to Whole Foods in Wheaton, IL, and snapped some photos of fresh-cut jackfruit that had been packaged like watermelon with the caption:

“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. #fail”

The post, dated Aug. 1, has 1,200 comments and 6,200 shares and most of the top comments are people of Asian descent giving a facepalm. A few more chimed in with other newbie grocers’ crimes against jackfruit. Don’t be that retailer.

There are a few problems here:

1. Most consumers don’t know what to do with a jackfruit.
2. Most won’t pay $35 for a whole one.
3. Most retailers haven’t figured out how to cut a manageable slice.
4. Slices aren’t how you eat it.

The inside of a jackfruit can be a puzzle. You have to wade through 20 pounds of sticky fibrous nonsense to get at the “pods” that are the edible part, and then take out the seeds. The seeds, by the way, can be boiled and roasted.

There are tons of jackfruit how-to videos out there that show consumers how to cut a whole fruit. Have your fresh-cut people have a crack at it, too.

Reminder – this is what jackfruit is supposed to look like.

This is what it looks like when you cut it like a watermelon. Don’t be that guy.

Coincidentally, Wheaton, IL, is very close to the Blue Book Services HQ, so I had one of my colleagues head over to the store in question a few days after the original photo was posted. It appears that the social media outrage resulted in the store pulling the product from shelves.

Image sources are either licensed or customer-provided.