Foodservice suppliers in London have been inundated with calls from restaurant chefs keen to switch to an autumn menu following today’s heavy rain.
Vernon Mascarenhas of New Covent Garden Market’s First Choice Produce has seen demand for summer favourites such as salads and berries plummet, as autumn produce, notably squashes and celeriac, takes centre stage.
“With today’s bad weather, everybody wants to change their menus straight away,” said the produce coordinator and salesman, whose clients include high-end London restaurants Anglo, Bombetta and Sonny’s Kitchen.
“Two days ago everyone wanted my salads, courgette flowers and berries,” he said. “But suddenly today they’re all talking to me about squashes, cobnuts, apples and pears, celeriac and root veg.”
The menu alterations will put pressure on wholesalers, who now face the challenge of quickly changing their orders and bringing in a whole range of new produce. But Mascarenhas has been prepared for the shift in demand for several weeks, he said.
“My supply chain has been in place for a few weeks and all it needs is for me to pull the trigger. This morning I was making calls to growers to say: ‘Right, go and harvest these new products.’”
The sudden change in demand could cause some produce to go to waste, he admitted. “Now the courgette flowers will just rot in the field because there’s no demand, but that’s a gamble we take. Having this heatwave in the past two weeks, we have actually made bonus courgette flower sales that I hadn’t calculated for.”
