This will be the 110th English apple season reported on by the Journal and, while this journalist cannot claim to have read through every year’s transcripts, you’ll no doubt believe him when he tells you that each and every growing season has held its own climatic story. The early months of 2005 were, of course, no different.
“Conditions to this point have not been absolutely ideal. There was some frost damage to both apples and pears right at the beginning, although not so much in the south east, where incidences were isolated,” says Barlow. “But overall, the effect on the crop was minimal at that stage. We then had a period of very good weather, followed by a very cold spell in early May, with winds. The indifferent temperatures were combined with an acute shortage of rainfall, particularly this time in the south east.”
But despite the usual travails of an English winter and spring, English growers are forecasting an above average crop in volume terms, across the whole range of apple varieties. Fruit size will almost inevitably be smaller than last year, when it was a major issue for some growers, some of whom reported two thirds of their Cox crop at above 80mm.
Although those growers may disagree, Barlow says that the marketing of 80mm plus apples was unhelpful. While understanding the practical reasons behind it, he adds: “The fruit was too large for the English consumer and putting it on the market alongside smaller sizes did not help the marketing of the crop as a whole.
“We won’t see that problem this year. And although there is a bit of leaf scab about it has not affected the fruit and there are no other particular problems with disease reported. Therefore we have a very clean crop.”
A short burst of steady rain would be ideal, and especially so after the heatwave that swept the country in the last 10 days or so. But with as much confidence as there ever can be with pre-season predictions, it appears the English apple crop is set fair.
Unfortunately, this is not the case with pears. Growers across the country suffered at the hands of the aforementioned cold snap, with early May a crucial time in the flowering period. A large proportion of the fruit fell from the trees, leaving many remaining single fruitlets to bulk up. As a result the Conference crop, which has been hardest hit, will be extremely small and fruit sizes generally will be on the large size. Similar problems will occur with other varieties, but possibly not to the same extent.
“Overall, we are feeling quite confident ahead of the coming season,” says Barlow. “The support and activity as far as the multiple retailers are concerned looks to be very good, and they have all been very active during the early summer putting their plans in place.” As has been the case in the last couple of seasons, he reports that there remains an enthusiasm for maximising sales of English fruit. “Commitment levels are high. There is a lot of point-of-sale material waiting to go into stores and we will be concentrating on making sure that English fruit is easy for the consumer to find,” he says.
That support and commitment, along with all the good intentions in the world are whistling in the wind unless they are then transferred through to stores, however. “There is a definite need for the retailers to champion the crop right from the start of the English season. The in-store activity was a little late starting last season and they were slow across the board getting Cox, Gala, and Egremont Russet onto the shelves - we didn’t really see a build-up until the beginning of September, when we could have gone at least a couple of weeks earlier. Once you fall behind at the beginning of the season, it takes quite a lot to enable you to catch up again. If the good intentions do not result in a pull for consumers to buy the product then we have a problem. Shelf space is key of course and we need that as soon as the fruit is ready.”
During the last couple of years, there has been an increase in plantings, particularly of new varieties. But there has also been significant replacement plantings of Cox and Gala, reflecting a recovery of some growers’ confidence in their long-term direction and viability. Braeburn is the variety that has been floating most buyers’ boats in the last few years, and, says Barlow, volume will as expected increase again in 2005. “We had a Braeburn crop of 2,500 tonnes last season and while official estimates are not officially put to bed yet, I would be surprised if that were not substantially larger this time around,” he says. Another industry source estimates that the figure will fall between 4,500t and 5,000t this season, and Barlow believes that in five years the English Braeburn output will have topped 10,000t. This may prove to be a conservative estimate.
“It is a hugely interesting variety for the multiples, and almost all of them have said they intend to continue to increase their volume of English Braeburn sales. There is of course the added advantage that, due to our geographical positioning at the northern extreme of global apple production, English Braeburn is superior in taste to that grown anywhere else in the world,” says Barlow.
However, while the demand is high now and the crop flies out of the farm gates, he does strike a note of caution. “We have to be careful because this variety could easily become oversupplied. It is of course a world brand, produced in many countries simultaneously and a large factor in its future profitability to English growers will be the volume available. If the demand/supply equation gets forced down to an uneconomical level, the advantage enjoyed by English growers at the moment could disappear.
That scenario would potentially bring the small band of “club” apples more to the fore. Cameo volumes were disappointingly low last year, says Barlow, but are expected to rise to around 1,000t this season, and with UK-grown Jazz and Greenstar soon to be hitting the market as a commercial proposition, growers are likely to be faced with some difficult choices. “It will be interesting to see the profitability performance of these varieties against the mainstay, higher volume types, especially as the club apples increase in volume,” he says. “If there is a widespread differential, it will inevitably force growers to begin looking at club varieties on a wider scale.”
The task it seems for English growers is to weigh up and eventually balance the potential of each variety and make a reasonable and, crucially, early assessment of its likely tipping point to ensure that the market does not get the opportunity to reduce premium values due to unnecessary surfeits of any brand or type.
Tesco has trumped its high-street rivals by announcing it intends to double sales of English apples within three years. Barlow welcomes such bullishness about the home-grown crop and adds that it presents an enormous challenge to growers. “Some growers are going to have to start looking at volume and yields more closely. Which will mean analysing the potentially greater yields of newer varieties against Cox for instance. Technical advances and the wider production of varieties such as Braeburn and Gala can increase output dramatically in the next few years if growers decide to go that way. And if we look at pears too - English growers produce around half the tonnage per hectare that their Dutch and Belgian counterparts achieve with Conference, so there has to be enormous potential to raise yields significantly on the same area of orchard.”
He adds that developing production methods will ensure that this can be achieved without at any stage jeopardising the outstanding attribute and arguably the major point of differentiation of English apples - their flavour.
FOUR-FIFTHS AND COUNTING
Optimising the volume balance across the basket of English varieties and ensuring that advanced production techniques are introduced in such a way that the overall quality of the crop remains intact are integral to the thinking of a new top-fruit sector working party, the 80% Group.
Barlow reports that response to the concept has been exceptional, with EA&P and the marketing groups also joined on the promotional committee by a good representation of the grower base. “We now have around 90 per cent of the crop represented in the group,” Barlow says, adding that no name-change is imminent, “and a much better cross-sectional representation of the industry. Hopefully this will give us the basis to drive greater co-ordination throughout the industry and introduce measures that are truly supported by the vast majority of English top-fruit growers.”
One of the principle objectives of the 80% Group this season is to ensure that English fruit gets the shelf space it needs to fulfil its undoubted potential. It will back this up with a grower-funded advertising campaign and in-store activity, probably in the second half of September and early October, the details of which are still being finalised [keep reading the Journal for more].
“We know there is a strong demand for English apples and pears and we have to ensure that consumers are actively going into stores and demanding it. If it isn’t available, we want them to be asking why,” says Barlow.
“I have been heartened and impressed by the attitudes of growers at our meetings so far. They are prepared to be self-critical and recognise that the problems are not all at other stages of the supply chain. They recognise that English growers have been far from perfect over the years and there is a real commitment to move things forward.”
The recognition that Cox as a variety has no divine right to fly off the supermarket shelves is a prime example. “Like any other fruit, Cox needs to command the respect of the consumer and justify that continuously,” says Barlow. “And if the industry does not feel that is possible in the long term, then it has to be strong enough to make difficult decisions and allow commercial sense to over-ride emotions. That attitude was evident at our meeting at Wye, and it is not unfair to say that it has been lacking in the past.”
A change in emphasis in the mindset of English growers could be crucial to both their long-term sustainability and that of the marketing groups that depend on their fruit. “Growers are key - if they do not do their jobs to their utmost ability, it leaves the marketing desks in an incredibly difficult position,” says Barlow. “The 80% Group will drive that message through and the promotional committee is determined to have a major impact on behalf of the industry from year one.”
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