Near-perfect harvesting weather this September has coincided with the earliest grape harvest ever experienced in Southern England. To have most of the sparkling wine varieties already gathered in by the end of the month and reports of top-quality fruit, bodes well for the 2025 vintage. Not the bumper year of 2018 in terms of yield, but quality is always better than quantity for wine producers.
The early apple harvest has produced more good quality fruit than expected and, like all other fruit crops this year, they are full of sweet flavour. This issue previews the 2025 National Fruit Show which this year sees 13 new exhibitors and an easier-to-enter fruit competition. New classes mean that even the busiest packhouse has no excuse not to enter some fruit. The fierce competition between companies that BAPL has created in the annual Retailer of the Year Awards is good news for growers and consumers. Tesco has kept their crown for highest British apples sales with Aldi a close second and Sainsburys won in the pears category. It is good to see that Asda has more than doubled its apple sales.
Planning application refusals for polytunnels are in the news again, as sadly locals fail to understand the connection between food security and home production. The NFU convened a food resilience roundtable that Dame Angela Eagle MP attended on her second day as farming minister. Will a new minister listen to industry leaders who are asking Defra and the wider government to show how they can work with them to deliver growth across the food sector?
In early September East Kent Fruit Society members had the opportunity to visit recycling company Overland and Kelsey Farms raspberry nursery, which uses recycled coir. A successful business listens to potential customers so that they can develop a product or service that satisfies the needs of customers and solves their problems. The story of Overland is an example of this approach. Returning the recycled material into tunnel- or greenhouse-grown crops makes sense, as virgin coir availability is likely to become more volatile as other regions move away from soil into substrate-based production and the demand for coir inevitably increases.Wilkin and Sons of Tiptree, Essex are known for their jam-making, but the company’s fruit farm is constantly experimenting. Find out more in a profile of the business.
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