To celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, FPJ shines a spotlight on some of the businesses that have helped make the trade what it is today. By way of introduction, David Shapley looks back at how the industry has changed since Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne
Sixty years is a long time in anyone’s life, and while the country celebrates the Diamond Jubilee, looking back at what was reported in FPJ (then the Fruit, Flower & Vegetable Trades’ Journal) reveals a period of continuous and massive change.
Inevitably, prices create the impersonal backdrop to an industry which is now virtually unrecognisable.
When Her Majesty came to the throne on 2 June 1953, Australian Cox and New Zealand Sturmers were making 50-60 shillings and 28-35 shillings respectively for a 40lb wooden box on the original Covent Garden Market.
The English strawberry season was underway with fruit priced at five to seven shillings per lb, while glasshouse tomatoes were two shillings per lb, competing with fruit from the Canary Isles at 12-20 shillings for a 24lb boat.
South African Navels and grapefruit dominated the citrus trade at 36-40 shillings, in counts which ranged from 80-288, and the famous Duroni cherries from Italy in 7lb woven baskets were 8s-10s.
Reading the news reports, both at that time and at the Silver Jubilee - despite being 25 years apart - we see that many industry hopes and fears have much in common with today.
There were already trade wars and the impact of new suppliers slowly replacing old.
The importance of Commonwealth suppliers to the national fruit bowl was undeniable. It was estimated that these countries provided half the imports needed. Australia was the prime source of summer apples, headed up by Tasmania, which alone exported two million cartons to our shores.
New Zealand also enjoyed the tradition of growing top fruit almost solely for the UK.
There were a remarkable range of varieties including Cox, what was to become the ubiquitous Golden Delicious, the now-forgotten Cleos, Rokewoods and many more. South Africa was only beginning to flex its muscles.
Jamaica, supported by the British Cameroons, was the main supplier of bananas, packed in wooden chests euphemistically known in the trade as coffins, and making headway over the Canary Isles, which shipped fruit wrapped in wood wool, brown paper and string.
The US caused trade ructions when its government’s policy to regenerate its traditional European market post war led to reports of apples being subsidised. If the impact was felt by Canada, the citrus market also feared for its future on a front wider than simply withstanding the re-emergence of California.
South Africa enjoyed a virtual monopoly on summer oranges and to a lesser extent grapefruit, which were still to rise in popularity, but here too there were already signs of competition around the periphery of its seasons.
Currency, as it does today, played a major part in profitability. Israel benefited from an 80 per cent export premium with its Jaffa brand, which was already deeply embedded in the public’s mind, while Spain, the UK’s oldest supplier going back over a century, boosted its trade through a level of different exchange rates.
Looking to the Mediterranean, importers were attracted to the Cyprus Valencia Late crop, which it was reported “would do much to fill the high price gap between the South African/Israeli season handover”.
There were other contenders further afield, such as Jamaica and British Honduras, where an average FOB [fresh off the boat] return of 24 shillings (£1.20p) for a box containing around 70 oranges or grapefruit was considered “worthwhile”.
There were also signs that the collective route offered a level of protection leading to the formation of many of the statutory marketing boards, which would come to dominate the industry for a generation.
While mainly based overseas, the concept was adopted nearer to our shores as Guernsey’s 800 acres of glasshouses were already being rapidly switched from grapes to tomatoes.
Structurally, they were all different, but some idea of the complexity needed to ensure that growers were equally supported can be seen from a report on the New Zealand Apple and Pear Marketing Board, which had been established in 1948.
“The basis of the Board’s trading is that it buys the fruit from the growers and sells it on its own behalf. Each year the minister determines the average price at which the Board will purchase, which is closely related to the average cost of production.
“The Board then compiles a purchase price by variety, grade and size proportioned to market returns, and adjusted on a quantitative basis so the average equates to the average purchase price. However, this cannot be completed until harvesting is completed, although growers can receive up to 90 per cent in advance of the anticipated level.”
This concentration of firepower backed by branding and promotions was aimed at the 40,000 independent retailers and street markets which represented the core outlets serving the public.
In turn this supported the 14 wholesale markets, pure importers who worked solely from one office, and secondary wholesalers that served fruiterers and greengrocers too far away to buy daily.
The ramifications of this were not lost elsewhere. English growers become co-operative minded, and overseas growers decided to take up the challenge.
The success of banding together in one form or another can be identified at the time the Silver Jubilee came round.
Agrexco, which marketed a widening range of Israel’s deciduous and vegetable crops under the Carmel brand, announced shortly afterwards that it had plans to raise its UK sales from £5m to £17m in the next two years.
At home British horticulture was surging forward and at that point meeting the challenges that had been identified 25 years earlier.
Then the future European top-fruit competitors identified were led by Italy, followed by Holland, then Denmark and finally Belgium, although France, which came to dominate the market, was not on the radar.
The National Farmers’ Union, in a report around May 1977, confirmed that crop values had risen from £277m to £551m.
Fruit prices also had a new look with the arrival of decimalisation. At the time of the Silver Jubilee celebration French Goldens were priced at 400-420p/28-31lb carton, with new season Cape at 750-760p, and New Zealand Cox making a premium for as much as 1,000p.
The orange market was overloaded at between 470-500p a carton, with fruit coming from six sources. Apart from Spain, Morocco, Israel and South Africa this now included Cuba and the return of California, while Jamaica and the Windwards competed for banana customers at 380-390p/28lb carton.
However, there were clouds on the horizon moving over the traditional chain of distribution.
So much so that the PPMA (Produce Packers and Marketing Association), the new trade organisation which combined the interests of the whole industry alongside the National Federation of Fruit and Potato Trade, the Retail Fruit Trade Federation and the Fruit Importers’ Association (later to amalgamate into the Fresh Produce Consortium), held a Great Debate at its annual conference as the Union Jack bunting proclaimed the national celebration. At that point the record shows that in 1972 supermarkets had already captured 30 per cent of sales, although quality and service, many of the PPMA delegates unsurprisingly maintained, was not what it is today.
Apart from concerns that were already affecting the fabric of the traditional trade, there were other aspects crying out for change. Packaging and presentation were hampered in a number of ways. One manufacturer complained of the waste because it had to stock 27 different types of lettuce carton!
British vegetable growers were castigated for offering crops on a catch-weight basis so that a bag of cabbage, for example, could vary between 35-40lb depending on the density of the variety, or if it had rained in the field.
On the import front, moves to reduce costs made bulk-bin shipment an attractive alternative. Some idea of the savings could be judged when the Deciduous Fruit Board admitted Cape apples packed in cartons cost £3 each in freight, to which another £2 had to be added from production costs.
The industry was also becoming more involved politically. Protective UK duties designed originally to look after virtually non-existent English crops such as stonefruit and grapes were still in place, causing uproar when one importer estimated this added an unnecessary £1 a tray to the market price.
At the same time Cyprus, which had built a thriving market for citrus, grapes and new potatoes in the UK, was looking for special treatment from the Common Market to allow it to continue to prosper.
These were the times when telegrams and later, telexes, were the paper communication links across the world.
Sophisticated cold chain, breathable packaging and barcodes were in the future, and category managers had yet to set their feet over the threshold of an entirely automated packhouse. Yet the glue which held the trade together and allowed it to prosper hasn’t changed that much: an eye for quality and the opportunity to spot a gap in the market and a customer. -
