Sainsbury’s is launching a new UK pear orchard at East Malling, in line with its pledge to increase English top-fruit production.

The Sainsbury’s East Malling Concept Orchard should produce its first fruits in 2010, compared to an orchard planted in a traditional system, which would be unlikely to fruit until 2015. It should produce three times the yield of fruit.

The East Malling orchard will evaluate four different planting regimes - Traditional bush, Multi V system, Double Head system and Single Stem ‘Run Thru’ - and demonstrate that it is possible to increase productivity per hectare in the UK and make pear-growing an attractive commercial proposition for English growers.

The orchard should also demonstrate which of the four growing techniques is most productive in the British climate.

Conference is the UK’s favorite pear, and Sainsbury’s sells 32.3 per cent of the UK’s output of the fruit - more than any other retailer.

Just 12,500 tonnes of the pears sold in the UK are British grown, the deficit being sourced from the continent. However, if growers were to adopt the new techniques, they would potentially be able to increase this to around 36,000t, according to Sainsbury’s.

The initiative builds on the success of Sainsbury’s original Concept Orchard, launched in September 2006, followed by its Organic Concept Orchard launched in 2007. Both existing concept orchards were designed to demonstrate that yields per hectare can be significantly increased to meet rising demand for British fruit.

Dr Theresa Huxley, Sainsbury’s product technologist for pears, said: “This new Conference pear orchard complements the Pear Sucker and Cherry and Plum DEFRA Link projects, both looking at techniques to control key pests and diseases with minimal impact on the environment, and towards which Sainsbury’s is contributing financially. We are delighted that our orchard is located at an industry-leading research institute and look forward to using our own commercial-scale trial to showcase and share best practice from around the world with British growers.

“This is another example of Sainsbury’s and its suppliers investing in industry projects which make a real difference to the British grower.”

Judith Batchelar, the retailer’s brand director, said: “We sell more English apples and pears than any other retailer so having an orchard of this kind means we can make a massive difference to the availability of English pears.”

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