How to populate columns with data in Excel using unique row combinations between two columns

This seems like it should be easy enough to do, but I can't seem to figure it out or find a tutorial.

I have two columns containing values. I would like the unique column combinations to repeat in another set of columns, and count the instances.

COLUMN A COLUMN B             COLUMN C COLUMN D COLUMN E
John     Apples               John     Apples   2
John     Apples               John     Bananas  1
John     Bananas              Sara     Apples   1
Sara     Apples               Sara     Kiwi     1
Sara     Kiwi                 Mike     Carrots  2
Mike     Carrots              Mike     Kiwi     1
Mike     Carrots                       Apples   2
Mike     Kiwi                          Carrots  1
         Apples                        Kiwi     1
         Apples
         Carrots
         Kiwi

I was able to transfer the unique values from one column to another using INDEX and MATCH, but can't get it to work with two columns.

This tutorial shows what I am looking for, but I'd like the second set of data to stay in a column, and not transpose into rows. https://www.extendoffice.com/documents/excel/3358-excel-transpose-unique-values.html

Solution

Try following this short animated screen capture finishing with the following formula in E2.

=COUNTIFS(A:A, IF(LEN(C2), C2, ""), B:B, D2)