Organic Review: Steve Sadler, the "Organic Mechanic"

We are currently supplying grape, plums and kiwi to ASDA with strawberry restarting from the USA. Avocado's will be up and running from July from South Africa.

The grape has recently moved into Egypt with Red Flame seedless and White Superior seedless being varieties that we have received so far. The fruit is of good quality and I am sure is welcomed by the packhouse who have been forced to struggle on, successfully I may add without an issue, through the long and difficult Chilean season.
Unfortunately we received no support through the difficult supply cross over period as the Brazilian crop was washed out, with the surviving fruiti being shipped to the conventional market. The US also experienced problems but these were mainly due to export license restrictions which took too long to resolve, and their season just seemed to pass us by.

Plum has just restarted and availability has been minimal to date with early pick from Spain, we are at present moving regions and availbility is likely to rise in the forthcoming weeks. The fruit that we have received is Santa Rosa and of good quality. We also have the option of US Black Amber Fruit. No problems are seen at present with availability on plum, with supply expected both from Spain, USA and Italy over the next few months.

Kiwi, we have no problems at all last year and the Kiki almost ran itself, this however came to an abrupt end when we entered the Chilean season this year. The main problem has been with  the pressures of the Kiwi on arrival, withi some arriving as hard as cricket balls. This lead to the fruit being subjected to a long ripening process which almost sent us short on a few occasions. We are now through the worst of it and Kiwi is now arriving as it should, almost ready to eat.

Organic strawberry finished in Spain in Week 23, and this year we have received no fruit from Holland as I am informed the grower is developing for 2004. STrawberry is due to restart in week 28 with availability through AMS Exotics. We will be packing Diamente from PGF and availability is currently good. As we had a few problems last year with stock holding we are currently in the process of trying to share containers with other customes in order to ensure more consistent and fresher arrivals.

Avocada has been a long and ongoing saga this year but we have eventually managed to secure a sale supported by ongoing availability. We will start with Hass from South Africa and will be punneting the fruti at Evesham. Availability is said to be good and will continue from South Africa until September.

Lets hope the introduction of the Avocado line follows suit with our current lines and adds to the success that we have had to date with the organic range.

Summer 2003