Displays and Misting: Produce as Pretty as a Painting

Customers gravitate toward eye-pleasing displays and vibrant produce.

Beauty. People gravitate toward it. They seek it in many forms: nature, music, literature, and paintings, such as Fruit Displayed on a Stand by Gustave Caillebotte and Basket of Apples by Paul Cézanne. These artists used light and shading to depict various fruits displayed on wooden tables, woven baskets and white cloths.

Beauty is found at the supermarket, too. Think rows of leafy greens or tables of crunchy apples. Customers will gravitate toward crisp carrots, luscious lemons, and pretty peppers. To enhance the beauty of such produce, grocers can borrow from famous painters, and arrange lovely displays.

FIRE UP WOOD DISPLAYS

When it comes to display cases, wood adds a beautiful look and natural feel. This is why wood paneling is trending in produce departments.

“A lot of our customers wanted more of a barn look, with more wood,” says James Countouris, general manager and director of sales for LemonTree Products in Erin, Ontario. “Our new Harvest Island tables (with wooden side panels) have a modern, sleek aesthetic. They have a 360-degree shop around, feature inclined sides, and have flat endcaps so you can pile them high with specials.”

LemonTree Products sells its display tables factory-direct to U.S. and Canadian grocery stores.
Wood display bins and tables that are modular can be combined in eye-pleasing ways. They often include lower shelving for cross-merchandising. Supermarkets can also choose a wood finish that conveys a mood. Dark woods like ebony are current favorites.

“Our refrigerated Fresh Go Bins and Fresh Go Displays are quite popular. The wood exterior is stained to match the non-refrigerated displays. This can give a seamless look,” says Chris Schotsman, vice president sales and marketing at Cayuga Displays in Cayuga, Ontario.

Cayuga Displays products are designed in a Lego concept, with blocks and standard pieces. This lets retailers customize different height, lengths, depths, exteriors and finish options.

The Nilssen Group in Amery, WI, currently uses a select cherry stain, which makes the product stand out. “A few of our older stores carry clear oak,” adds Ted Eisold, produce director. “Most of our cases are open-air. It is easy for the customer to shop that way.”

Nilssen Group is comprised of independent retail grocers in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

MIST TO MAKE IT FRESH

Another way to ensure produce looks vibrant is to mist or fog the product. Adding humidity and moisture can also prevent produce from drying out.

“With any leafy greens, you want to avoid wilting. For zucchini, misting prevents shriveling and gives a 6% increase in weight. For carrots, without humidity, you can almost bend them. With humidity, you get crispy carrots, which is what you want,” explains Itamar Kleinberger, co-owner of Prodew Misting and Humidification in Marietta, GA.

ProDew serves chains like Aldi and Publix. Its directional fog comes out like a cloud and is silent. It says a system can pay for itself in three to four months due to reduced waste and water/labor savings (no more hosing down produce).

In general, flow rates range from roughly 25 to 150 microns per droplet for misting, and one to 10 microns per droplet for fogging.

UltraMist, the standard misting system from Corrigan Corporation of America in Gurnee, IL, has easy slide-on and off for individual nozzles, so retailers don’t have to turn off the whole system. “Our low flow is 25 microns per droplet and 80 degrees of spray pattern (like a round cone),” says Emily Stavrou, vice president.

Corrigan Corp. also offers Preserve, a no-wetting dry fog with droplets of five microns. “The nebulization occurs at the nozzle, and that creates a closed loop, which means there is no introduction of bacteria,” says Stavrou. Preserve gives evaporative cooling, which reduces the temperature in the case.

With fogging, the goal is to keep moisture within the product so it has brighter colors, retains more nutrients and vitamins, and has a longer shelf life.

FreshTech Solutions in Vancouver, WA, offers one to three micron droplets, which means the produce stays healthier and fresher longer, says Mike Hartman, president and chief commercial officer. “With a wet rack, misting treats leafy greens and a few other items. When you are dry misting (fogging), you can expand that to peppers, apples, asparagus, mushrooms, herbs.”

“You can use FreshTech fogging on a dry case in the middle of the floor at the produce department. It is a fog, but not a real heavy fog,” adds Ken Brine, owner/partner of Advanced Equipment Sales Group (AES) in Sharon, MO.

AES is the manufacturer’s rep for FreshTech Solutions, Boston Group (display case protection), ThermoSeal 1400 (glass doors) and others.

MAKE DISPLAYS POP

To make fresh produce look pretty, supermarket chains are creating elegant displays. And independent grocers are stepping up, too.

“Everything is getting really fancy. This drives more of a need for our products,” says Dave Lyons, marketing/creative director of Blanc Display Group in Dover, NJ. “We provided wall decor for a small store in Alabama, signage over the cases that says ‘homegrown’ or ‘straight from the fields’ — nice slogans that people will look at. This creates ambience.”

Blanc Display Group makes mobile units, wire displays, baskets, lighting and other display items.
To punch up store sales, manufacturers are eager to propose different, exciting ways to merchandise produce.

“For one customer, we placed leafy greens on beautiful curved vertical racks, and added a pepper section with LED lighting to make the colors pop. We filled the display from top to bottom, so it was a wall of produce,” says Mark Chenoweth, vice president sales and marketing for Alco Designs Inc. in Gardena, CA. “Their produce sales per store went up 28%, and their shrink went down 9%.”

To make it pleasing to the eye, produce can be arranged on shelves that are the same length, or get progressively longer.

“Having thin shelves gives a merchandising effect. A longer bottom shelf gives a waterfall effect. You have heavier products at the bottom and lighter products on the top,” says Richelle Fermanich, marketing content manager of Carlson AirFlo in Brooklyn Park, MN.

Over at FreshTech Solutions, they are promoting Fresh Case. New to the U.S., it’s an upright case (rather than a wood island) that uses dry misting, fans, and no refrigeration. “Our system maintains optimal humidity conditions and lowers the store temperature in the case. Our fogging and fans cool it enough to create an optimum environment for produce,” says Hartman.

ADD TRAYS AND TOPPERS

Aside from adding pizzazz to produce displays, grocers have to address practical concerns. Consider matting, trays and shelves to extend the product life of fruits and vegetables.

“Our Anti-Bruise Foam Matting has become quite popular for stone fruits and bananas — it helps reduce shrink. Produce Trays help keep it organized. They come in handy when you have a variety of products,” says Schotsman of Cayuga Displays.

Shelves from Carlson AirFlo feature a unique 33%-hole pattern that allows cool air to circulate around the product. For misting/fogging, its aluminum material holds the temperature better than steel or plastic. “Our shelf material is made of anodized aluminum material, which is engineered to keep produce fresher, longer and prevent it from deteriorating,” says Fermanich.

“Aluminum is the best material to use. We go into the grocery stores with temperature guns to prove the temperature is consistent,” says Brine of AES.

For easy organization, choose acrylic dividers and custom upper shelves.

“All of our tables come with a full divider system, which aids the produce team in keeping it organized. The dividers move around, so you can have a larger or smaller tomato section, for example,” says Countouris of LemonTree Products.

For farmers market style displays with multiple table heights, add step displays. That way, shoppers will easily see all of the produce.

Alco Designs offers curved baskets, round display pedestals, pyramids for bananas. “We manufacture plastics for refrigerated and non-refrigerated. Any merchandise can go on this. In the dry area, anything from onions to peppers to stone fruits, you name it,” says Chenoweth.

And when it comes to ESLs (Electronic Sign Labels), add toppers to make them more noticeable.

“Some ESLs are so small that people can’t see them. In the wet case, it can be hard to read the label information for green onions, loose carrots, kale. That is where we can do toppers; we can show a product is organic, for example. Our display would go around the ESL like a picture frame,” says Lyons of Blanc Display Group.

KEEP IT PURE AND SANITARY

Safety and sanitation are paramount with produce. Display units may have wood panels on the side, but the produce rests on polymer tops.

“Wood absorbs water, so our tabletops are impermeable to water and are high sheen. You can clean them with bleach or whatever you want, and they are sanitary. All of our tables stand up to misting and fogging,” says Countouris.

Alco Designs manufactures ABS plastic at its facility in California. “It includes the antimicrobial in the material. So, if a produce department uses our ABS plastic, they can be sure they won’t have a food safety issue with bacteria growth,” says Chenoweth.

FILTER THE WATER

Reverse osmosis filters water and is highly recommended for displays that add humidity to produce. Misting/fogging companies sell their own systems, or work with stores that already have one.

“We developed a special reverse osmosis system that ensures we have enough water from one misting cycle to the next cycle. It removes calcium and other minerals from the water so it doesn’t create build-up on the cases. So, you spray vegetables with just pure water,” says Kleinberger of Prodew.

“Our reserve osmosis removes minerals in water that can produce a white film. This improves the purity of the water by 99.9%,” says Stavrou of Corrigan Corp. To maintain the system, the manufacturer recommends retailers wipe nozzles every three months and change filters every six months. The ozone in the system disinfects faster than chlorine.

Instead of nozzles, FreshTech Solutions has fog coming out of 20 mm holes, which eliminates another place for bacteria to form. “The only time it is not fogging is for the three minutes every hour when it flushes itself out, so that there is no standing water or bacteria buildup,” says Hartman. The system is on for 24 hours, and runs ozone through diffuser pipes at 2 a.m. for sanitization.

ADD MODULAR UNITS

Grocers may wish to encourage consumer impulse buying, despite Lending Tree reporting that 38% of U.S. shoppers are sticking to their list, from the Feb. 24, 2025, article, 88 Percent Say They’ve Changed Grocery Shopping Habits Due To Inflation.

For example, stores can place main potatoes on a lower shelf and arrange purple/yellow potatoes above them, to move people to a higher margin. Or stock mobile units with juice, seasonal items or healthy snacks.

“Modular flexibility is critical. If you go to Wegmans, you see they typically use a huge amount of plugged-in mobile refrigerated cases. If Memorial Day is coming, they can make a display of produce items for that,” says Schotsman of Cayuga Displays.

Mobile merchandising units work well for cross-merchandising and can increase basket size and drive unplanned purchases. Carlson AirFlo gives the example of a stand with croutons, mixed nuts, and other salad toppings in baskets, near the bagged salad section of the store.

THINK SMALL

When it comes to smaller grocery stores, maximizing floor space is critical — think small, vertical or flexible display units.

“We sell a variety of wood tables and displays that have a smaller footprint. This allows them to have as many SKUs as possible,” says Chenoweth of Alco Designs.

“There are produce tables that have side shelves, so they can cross-merchandise that way. The store can add herbs at the end of the bin. Or add a shelf extender, or go up into a pyramid,” says Lyons of Blanc Display Group.

“We were always getting calls from Manhattan and Brooklyn saying, ‘We love your tables, but they are too big for us.’ We heard that enough that we were customer-driven to create the Express Island table. It is a high-density merchandiser — you can pack a lot of produce in a small space,” says Countouris of LemonTree Products.