Business & Money | Saturday 23 November, 2019 2:30 am |

 With the global shopping phenomenon ‘White Friday’ taking place on Friday 29th of November, Danube Online, the Kingdom’s leading online grocery shopping platform has revealed the top online food shopping trends in advance of its ‘Green Friday’ shopping festival. 
Online grocery shopping in the Kingdom continues to show strong growth. Forty-five percent of shoppers in the Kingdom bought groceries online at least once1 and with the Kingdom’s retail market predicted to be valued valued at $119 billion by 20232, the forecast for growth remains strong. 
Danube Online and the Danube App is on track to hit 3 million users in 2019 and to celebrate the application’s third ‘Green Friday’ shopping festival, the application is sharing a series of online shopping trends that show no signs of slowing down in 2020. Amongst Danube Online shoppers, cravings for sugar alternatives and natural flavors are growing. Over the 12-month period from September 2018 to September 20193;
• The growth in sales of honey was 64% higher than growth in sales of sugar.
• The growth in sales of natural drinks sweeteners such as Stevia based sweeteners was 87% higher than the growth in sales of sugar.
• The growth in sales of fresh juices was 96% higher than the growth in sales of sugary soda drinks.
• The growth in sales of sugar-free jams was 44% higher than the growth in sales of chocolate spreads. 
• The growth in sales of healthy potato chip alternatives such as chia seed and kale chips grew 160% versus the growth in sales of regular potato chips.
• Fresh fruit sales grew over 70%. 
The demand for whole-grain products such as whole-grain bread, whole-grain rice and whole grain tortillas grew an incredible 340% compared to sales of the same non-whole grain product options over the same period.3 Another strong food trend emerging is the thirst for organic milk options, which grew in sales by over 200%3 when compared to sales of non-organic milk. Sales of milk alternatives such as almond milk also grew almost 60% in the last year.3 
Commenting on the trends, Mr. Majed M. AlTahan, Founder & CEO of Danube Online commented; “We are excited to release these online shopping trends from Danube Online and the Danube App in advance of ‘Green Friday’; our biggest shopping festival of the year, with unrivalled online offers for our customers. This is our third year celebrating ‘Green Friday’ which is the Danube Online take on the global shopping phenomenon ‘Black Friday’ or ‘White Friday’ as we say in the Middle East. To mark the occasion this year, we are sharing some telling insights into online grocery shopping trends from Saudi Arabia and we can see clearly that our Danube Online shoppers are becoming increasingly health-conscious and demanding healthier food options. Online grocery is one of the fastest growing retail segments in the region. These insights are gathered from shopping patterns over the last year, but we predict these trends to continue in 2020.”
The Danube Online ‘Green Friday’ shopping festival takes place from Friday, November 29th through Sunday, November 31st offering savings of up to 80% on thousands of grocery items.