Industry experts fear cherry volumes could be down by as much as 50 per cent after the British season started three weeks later than usual.
With cherries prone to splitting in rainy conditions, the wet weather has made it tough for growers up and down the country.
“This has been the most challenging UK season for growers I can remember, with the rain making it very difficult to produce high-quality cherries,” said Richard Isaacs, who manages Univeg Katope UK’s cherry business.
Jon Clark, director of Total Cherry said that UK volumes are down by around 50 per cent on pre-season estimates of 4,000 tonnes.
“The weather has not been kind, there has been a lot of cloud and hardly any sunshine, which has deprived the cherries of that extra sweetness," said Clark.
Isaacs added: “Univeg represents five growers and on average there is 70 to 80 per cent splitting in uncovered orchards; I think across the whole board there could be a 50 per cent reduction in cherry sales to supermarkets.”
After good weather last season many growers have not covered their crops and Norton Folgate’s commercial director Duncan Forbes believes this has created production issues.
“Covered production is better protected but unfortunately there is limited covered production in the total UK cherry crop,” said Forbes.
But he admitted the wet weather has also been causing problems even for covered cherry crops. Forbes explained: “The humidity from warm days under the cover with a lot of rain seeping up through the soil has caused rots and mould so even covered production is seeing issues.”
But despite the problems, the perseverance of UK growers has installed confidence in retailers, with Tesco confident of meeting targets. Tesco stonefruit buyer Marie-Claire Lisk said: “Yes, consumer demand far exceeds supply at the moment, but, weather permitting, we aim to have twice as many British cherries to sell compared with last year.”
Clark feels a bit of sunshine could turn things around for UK cherry growers. He concluded: “A little bit of sunshine would be a great help to increase demand and it has to come at some point."
