X5 Club, X5 Group’s unified loyalty programme, presents its first Avocado Index – a measurement of consumer demand for healthy food across the country and in individual regions based on sales at X5’s two leading retail chains. The national average share of healthy products in total sales came in at 15.2%. The list of the country’s «healthiest» regions includes the Kabardino-Balkarian (18.9%) and Karachayevo-Circassian (17.2%) Republics, the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area – Yugra (17.3%) and the Tyumen Region (17.3%).

Healthy products were on average present in every seventh purchase across the country, representing purchases by approximately 35 million X5 customers. In the first three months of 2023 alone, nearly 970 million healthy food items were sold, including more than 11 million avocados. In addition to the healthy diet ranking leaders – the Kabardino-Balkarian and Karachayevo-Circassian Republics – the Irkutsk Region and the Stavropol Territory were among the top 3 regions by the total number of avocados sold.

Alexandr Chukhontsev, Head of Loyalty and Partnerships at X5 Group, commented:

«X5 encourages our customers to lead healthy lifestyles, primarily by providing a vast choice of healthy products that contribute to a more diversified and balanced diet. Moreover, supporting healthy lifestyles is one of the goals of the Company’s sustainability strategy adopted in 2019. We launched the Avocado Index to continuously track customer demand for healthy products in different regions of the country and identify the specific food items most often chosen by visitors to our stores. The index will be released quarterly to reflect changes in consumption trends across out retail footprint.»

In the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, bananas were the most popular healthy food, while shoppers in the Karachayevo-Circassian Republic were most likely to choose exotic fruits like pineapple, mango, and others. While hazelnuts and cashew nuts were the nuts of choice for health-conscious consumers in the Karachayevo-Circassian Republic, customers in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area and Tyumen Region prefer pine nuts. For the country overall, pears, quinces, fish and fish products as well as vegan cheeses were the most popular healthy products.

The largest year-on-year increase in the share of healthy foods in customer baskets over the first quarter of 2023 were in the Kaliningrad Region (where sales of healthy products grew by 70.7%), the Irkutsk Region (+63%), the Karachayevo-Circassian Republic (+58%), the Altai Republic (+52%), and the Tomsk Region (+49%).

Nationwide, consumption of sugar-free and gluten-free baked goods (+776%), pears and quinces (+305%), seafood (+269%), and plant-based analogues of dairy products (+276%) posted the biggest growth over the first quarter. At the same time, demand for plant-based milk alternatives (including soy, coconut, almond milk and others) declined by 63%. Sales of dietary poultry meat and sweeteners have also declined.

X5 Club will publish Avocado Index data on a quarterly basis, showing the share of healthy products in the basket of Pyaterochka and Perekrestok customers across the 69 regions where these X5 Group retail chains operate. For the first quarter of 2023, 67 regions were included in the calculations, excluding the Khabarovsk and Primorye Territories. The index is calculated as the ratio of the share of healthy products in retail sales to the total retail sales of X5 retail chains, where the latter is taken as 100%.

The index’s list of healthy products has been compiled in accordance with recommendations by the World Health Organisation and verified by a nutritionist. It covers 84 product categories, including fruits, vegetables, dried fruits, dairy products, nuts, fish and seafood, and more.