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With the advent of healthy and organic living, inclusion of fruits and vegetables in our daily dietary regimen is becoming increasingly popular. Regular fruit intake has been known to stave off numerous deficiencies and illnesses in both the young and old. It is for this reason that the demand for fresh market produce has skyrocketed over the past few years. More and more business entities are diversifying their enterprises by incorporating buying and selling of groceries as one of their franchises, with the aim of making neat returns. While this is a sound business idea, an important consideration to be made before making any investments, would be buying fruit commodities pros and cons.

Some of the advantages of such a venture include:

a.) Year round availability of a variety of

fruits and vegetables to meet your customers’ demands.

Horticulture and other fruit-based farming projects are rapidly expanding to satisfy the ever rising demand for fresh produce especially from urban dwellers. This ensures that the retailer dealing in the buying and sale of such commodity has a constant supply of fresh stock in all seasons.

b.) A broad customer base, which arrays from restaurant owners to regular homemakers.

Fruits and vegetables have the unique advantage of find use both in homes and commercial settings. It is impossible to imagine a balanced diet without involving fruits or vegetables in the recipe.The direct effect of such a diversified bracket of customers guarantees the retailer a steady market all year around.

c.) little or no processing needed for product to be market-viable.

Since most fruits can be consumed readily, the retailer is less burdened with the prospect having to hire or invest in processing utilities. Consequently, it becomes considerably easier and less taxing setting up a fruit retailer buying and supply chain.

In any scenario, the gains realized are often balanced by a fair share of odds. Hence, buying of fruits commodities has the following disadvantages;

a.) Recurrence of high refrigeration costs.

Fruits and vegetables are very perishable. A retailer would have to invest in a good cooling system to prevent the produce from going bad before it’s purchased. In areas or countries where scarcity of electric power is a reality, it becomes expensive to run such a business without increasing the market price considerably.

b.) Improper handling during shipping can adversely affect the shelf life of the produce.

Most entities that specialize in fruits and other fresh produce marketing continually incur losses resulting from poor handling during transit especially for long distances. In order for a retailer to avoid such constraints, he would have to invest in a reliable high-end transport system that would significantly dwindle his profits.

c.) Internal quality defects are sometimes difficult to detect.

Buying fruits can sometimes be a daunting task especially when evaluating the quality levels of this product. Cases of where a retailer purchases unknowingly huge volumes of spoilt produce from a supplier are not uncommon. This, in the long run, strains the seller – customer relationship and could contribute to the failure of a business in some extreme cases.