This year’s National Fruit Show (NFS) will focus on celebrating its 75th anniversary.
The NFS will take place on October 15-16, at the Kent Showground, Maidstone, and Marden Fruit Show Society (MFSS) chairman Jeremy Scott said this week that it is going to be “a busy and celebratory year” for the organisation.
Scott, pictured, told the society’s AGM on Monday: “I am pleased to be able to report another good year for the MFSS, in this my second chairman’s report. It has been a year of change, starting with the welcoming of a new president [Lord Sandy Bruce-Lockhart], and a year of disappointment for some, when hail caused devastating damage to their crops.
“We have been able to generate a surplus in our accounts, which has put the society in a strong position for its 75th anniversary year and the future,” he added.
As well as the MFSS’s annual farm walk, two-day fruit show and show dinner, the society will take a stand at the Kent County Agricultural Society’s Living Land event in May. This event aims to help reconnect 3,000 primary schoolchildren with land, food and rural activities.
The MFSS has also published a commemorative handbook to mark its 75 years in the industry. The 65-page booklet traces the NFS from its inception in 1933 to the present, with a timeline of events through letters and photographs. The NFS sponsors - Norman Collett English Fruit Marketing, Tesco, BASF and Hadlow College - have also supported the handbook.
This year, the show dinner will be at Leeds Castle, and the tasting event will be held at the Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex. “This shopping centre offers a large captive audience to sell apples to, and meets with the society’s guidelines of pushing the industry forward,” said Scott.
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