Trade body British Apples & Pears Limited (BAPL) has begun publishing monthly sales data on its website, showing the performance of different retailers in stocking UK-grown fruit.
The data, which will be aggregated from BAPL member returns, will show the tonnages of British apples harvested from the 2022 apple crop and sold by growers to British supermarkets. It will reveal which UK supermarket is buying the most British apples from UK growers.
“British retailers say they want to support British, and this data will reveal those retailers that really are buying British.” Explained BAPL executive chair Ali Capper. “We know from previous data that Aldi, for example, sold more British apples than any other supermarket in the year ending July 2022. We are now well into the sales year for the 2022 British apple crop and with this new monthly data we’ll have a much more current picture of British apple sales by supermarket.”
The monthly BAPL data will be aggregated at the end of the growing year (in late Summer 2023) to enable BAPL to announce its British apple retailer of the year.
“It’s going to be fascinating to see which supermarket comes out on top this season,” said Capper. “It’s so important all our supermarkets get behind British farmers and our wonderful British apples. We know that consumers want British if at all possible. When we have such wonderful fruit available in good quantities, that will store well, there really is no reason to look overseas.”
The first monthly UK apple sales data shows that Tesco sold the most British apples in January, ahead of Aldi. Sainsbury’s was third, Lidl fourth then followed by Morrisons (fifth), Waitrose (sixth) and Asda (seventh).
New monthly sales data will be published in the third week of the following month. For example, February 2023 British apple sales data will be published during week commencing 20th March 2023.