UK Season review

Looking back, the 2003 season was a vintage year, particularly in the UK with good fruit quality and corresponding sales. It was therefore very encouraging in the first half of 2004 to see such a healthy sales performance. The fruit we received from the Middle East was excellent quality and there is no doubt the varieties and growing performance of these countries provide a product that justifies the inevitable high retail prices of this season.

Our Jordanian fruit was particularly well received, most of which was the variety Honor from Plant Sciences. Uncharacteristically we continued with Jordanian fruit through the whole of March, overlapping with Spanish supply to smooth over any availability or quality issues.

The Spanish season was wet and difficult but a great deal of effort from growers ensured we came our of the year with our best ever quality and sales performance. A switch from camarosa to better varieties has helped enormously. We found the variety Ventana difficult to deliver into the Uk without bruising and although it had a good flavour in the early part of the season, it was less exciting later in the year.

Candonga from breeders Planasa was renamed Sabrosaand although not instantly a winner with growers because of its late season, it worked well for sales. We could have sold the crop four times over for our own production in Portugal. The substrate production of Camarosa is in a class of its own, it has better flavour, extended shelf life and a more acceptable appearance for UK consumers. Too susceptible to bruising for the UK market, its appearance and flavour ensure phenomenal sales in France and later during the season in Spain "a good "coals to Newcastle" story).

Our UK season started well in April and continued to build momentum during May; good quality again creating a strong demand. Then very high temperatures in early June brought on the crops too fast and fruit was starting to soften and take on a cooked flavour. Then it rained. Sales increases halted and slipped into decline as the Wimbledon fortnight became as exciting and successful as Tim Henman.

"Sixty-Day" Elsanta crops and their good fruit quality halted the decline in sales during July but we were still balling with pall weather and its effect on sales. Over the past few years we have reduced our dependency on Everest, preferring some of the alternative varieties but we suffered, like everyone from volumes exceeding demand and low price worries being replaced by insufficient orders. I believe we perhaps fared better than others during a difficult August and early September with out strawberry sales.

Despite a marketing constraint, raspberries showed a good growth throughout the year but, at their peak, we were being offered volumes of fruit four times larger than we have sales for outside of WPE group. Clearly there is an imbalance in the volume of fruit now being produced and the sales opportunity. It is difficult to have to show growers returns that scarcely cover their production and picking costs because of pricing policies elsewhere.

Through Autumn strawberry and raspberry sales were quite strong. Our WPE growers in Holland have done a great job on fruit quality throughout the period; the product has looked and tasted good. While we have sen most high street retailers struggling to keep raspberries on the shelves during November, we have been close to achieving full availability. With improved varieties available in the autumn we can see only growth in raspberry sales during this period.

Blueberries have been the star performer of the year. Declarations by journalists in the USA that they are the healthiest of all food products have pushed our sales up by 140%; just as well there has been a corresponding level of crop planting throughout Europe to keep up with the demand.

If 2003 was the best year in the last ten years for growers, let us hope we can look back on 2004 as having been the worst for the coming ten.

Winter 2004