The first strawberries of the new UK season are set to hit the shelves of Waitrose this coming Thursday, heralding the start of what many in the country hope will be a warm spring following one of the coldest winters on record.
According to the retailer, the fruit is almost ready for picking and will initially be sold in 46 of its stores under the essential Waitrose brand, before supplies are extended to a total of 184 outlets as of 24 March.
Priced at £3.59 (€3.94) for a 225g punnet, the Elsanta berries are supplied by specialist grower Hall Hunter, based in the southern English town of Littlehampton, West Sussex.
Hall Hunter is one of the country's largest soft fruit producers and has been supplying Waitrose for 16 years.
Grower Harry Hall said he had achieved the industry coup of supplying the season's first strawberries by investing in the latest glasshouse technology, carefully controlling temperatures to protect the fruit from cold temperatures while taking maximum advantage of daylight levels on the south coast of England.
Waitrose soft fruit buyer Nicki Baggott said: 'We have been working closely with our growers to ensure that our customers will be the first to taste English strawberries in 2010.'
She added: 'The first British strawberry signifies the end of winter and heralds the arrival of spring. This explains why it's the ultimate feel-good fruit - and one which retailers are clamouring to get on their shelves as early as they can.'
The essential Waitrose brand, which recently celebrated its first anniversary, is used to market 1,400 products and is set to be worth more than £750m (€824m) this year following an 18 per cent increase in sales volumes during 2009.
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