Despite retailer claims, the UK asparagus season has still to get underway, growers have said.
A flurry of press coverage saw Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer all looking to out do each other in the race to be the first to have British asparagus. However, from a grower perspective, the retailers have jumped the gun.
However, Chris Kitchen, spokesman for the British asparagus season, said the traditional seasonality of the crop was still key.
He said: “It’s great that the supermarkets have got behind the campaign to promote British asparagus and that they were so passionate about getting the first of the year’s crop into stores.
“These small volumes of forced asparagus, which have been grown under polytunnels, created interest in advance of the main season later this month, and of course, provided consumers shopping in a few stores with an early taste of summer.”
He said consumers could really get excited about the start of the season in late April when good volumes of British grown asparagus comes on stream, nationwide.
“Growers all over the country are working hard to meet the volumes demanded by the retailers throughout the main season - the fact the supermarkets have raised anticipation of the season by creating a race is great news for the asparagus industry,” he
