Great UK apple season predicted to follow bumper summer for British fruit

Great news for UK apple lovers – the fantastic summer for British fruit quality and productivity is set to continue into the autumn.

That’s the prediction from UK apple growers following near perfect growing conditions that saw long hours of sunshine during the summer and plenty of rainfall in recent weeks.

According to Tesco, the great fruit growing conditions have led to high quality, bumper crops of British grown strawberries, blueberries, raspberries as well as cherries leading to high demand for shoppers.

And the great quality this summer has led directly to the supermarket seeing strong volume growth for many of the UK’s favourite summer fruits with demand for berries up 10 per cent on last summer and cherries up by 35 per cent.

Now apples are set to follow with many apple growers forecasting a very strong yield of high quality fruit landing on supermarket shelves over the autumn months.

And after talking with its suppliers and growers Tesco is predicting British apple demand to be up 10 per cent on last season.

Tesco apple buyer Paul Curtis said: “We’ve had one of the best summers for British grown fruit in recent years with lots of sunshine helping to raise sugar levels and create classic berries and cherries.

“That’s clearly gone down well with shoppers resulting in high demand throughout the summer months.

“But there’s more good news on the way for the start of the apple season with our growers reporting great quality fruit coming through.”

One of the UK’s biggest apple growers, Adrian Scripps, based near Tonbridge in Kent say that the excellent growing conditions has produced one of the best quality crops in recent years.

The company said that the warmer weather in the six to eight weeks after the apple crop had bloomed was particularly beneficial in producing classic fruit with great skin colour and a fantastic flavour.

Scripps Managing Director James Simpson said: “The fruit coming through is very attractive with an excellent skin finish, whereas last season we saw a level of russeting to the skin. 

“Overall colour is very good with the varieties now being harvested and this is improving markedly with the later season apples such as Kanzi® and Pink Lady®. The cooler nights that we usually see in September will help the fruit colour up.

“Perhaps most important of all though is that the flavour is fantastic, some of the best we’ve seen in recent years. This is undoubtedly due to the gloriously sunny warm weather seen through late July and August.”

The demand for more fruit follows Tesco’s campaign to help the nation get more of it’s five a day.

During August Tesco launched a campaign to help the nation get more of its five-a-day as the latest data shows less than 1 in 5 people in the UK manage to eat enough fruit and veg.

Families were offered personalised Clubcard rewards on fruit and veg throughout the summer, with free fruit available for kids in Tesco stores.