here will be less English corn on the cob for the nation’s barbecues once this summer gets going due to the recent downpours.
The atrocious weather conditions have decimated Greyfriars’ North Yorkshire crop and hampered the growing of its crops in other parts of the UK, which have effectively been “growing in the dark”, according to general manager John Smith.
Meanwhile, Barfoots of Botley acknowledges that its yields will potentially be down too. “The crop is there,” says Barfoots’ business unit manager James Meers.
“But it is smaller in size and will possibly be paler too. We just do not know until we start harvesting.”
For both producers, the season is some two weeks late. Both say they would have liked to be in full flow by now, but it’s going to be early August before that is likely to happen. “We are disappointed that we are not yet in full harvest but you can’t fight the weather,” says Smith. “We just do not know until we get in there, but possibly pollination may not have been as uniform as we would have hoped. We just cannot say what the yield will be like at this moment.”
Smith says the issue is not just that this summer’s crop is producing lower yields and is late but also that the producer has not had a chance to plant for the next cycle.
The QV Foods-owned producer has already had to import corn in order to meet demand now that the sunshine is finally making an appearance.
He adds that the business hopes UK consumers will understand why English sweetcorn, once it gets onto the supermarket shelves, will inevitably be priced higher to reflect the problems with producing this year’s crop.
Meers is a little more optimistic about Barfoots’ crops as they are mainly on the south coast and the Isle of Wight. However, he says that they are already showing irregularities in size and that is the main concern right now.
“The [plants] seem to have pollinated just fine,” he explains. “But because we have had half the amount of sunshine we should have, they are smaller than we would have liked them to be.”
Barfoots does have something to smile about though, as its launch of Barfoot Bites sweetcorn packs has bucked the trend for sales. The microwavable mini-sweetcorn, imported from Spain among other countries, has proved popular with shoppers and Meers says sales since February have grown by 40 per cent. “We’ve moved into different meal occasions such as lunchboxes.” -
No comments yet