Last season, Tesco sold 40 per cent of the English Braeburn crop, 33 per cent of English Gala, 23 per cent of the English Cox and 30 per cent of the remaining domestically grown varieties. The supermarket chain then marked the run-up to the forthcoming season by pledging to double its sales of home-grown apples and pears within the next three years.
“It is a genuine and ambitious claim,” says de la Fuente. “But Tesco has always been about setting itself ambitious targets and this one is no different. We want to try and do it with our existing suppliers. If we can drive more volume through them and their resources, we can reduce overhead costs and sweat assets - and that has to help growers.”
He met last week with EA&P’s Adrian Barlow and says that, as both parties have essentially the same goal - “to maximise the sales of English apples and pears” - there is a commitment from Tesco to tie in its thinking with that of EA&P. “We do not intend to step on each other’s toes while we’re dancing together,” de la Fuente says. “My job and Adrian’s are very similar and if Adrian is representing growers with a promotional campaign funded by growers - his association and Tesco have a joint goal. I don’t think we differ in any way, and I think if we fail [to double sales in three years] then it will be a joint failure.
“I have only been in this position for six months and that has been spent familiarising myself with the category in general,” says de la Fuente. “The English crop is obviously a major focus for us. Despite what many people may think or say about Tesco, we are a British company first and foremost and, as British farming’s number one customer we recognise our responsibility to the industry. As well as being our suppliers, British growers are our customers, as are their friends and family, and we take that extremely seriously.”
It has been claimed that, to reach its three-year aims, Tesco would be able to massage its figures by including varieties that it has not previously classified as ‘English’. But de la Fuente refutes this. “If you look at TNS figures, English apples are just the so-called English varieties - Worcester, Egremont Russet and Cox primarily. There is a flagrant disregard of the English-grown Gala and Braeburn. But that’s where the major growth is and we do not look at it like that at all. We do include Gala and Braeburn in our English figures, because we see significant growth - guess what our top selling apple is and then guess what the number two is.” The reality of the situation is borne out by the numbers of growers switching into the varieties they believe to have best potential.
There is no year-one target for increasing sales, although programmes have risen on last year’s levels. “We know of course that the Cox will be smaller sized, although the crop could be 25 per cent larger in volume. So we have plans to promote prepacks,” he says. The expansion of the Tesco Express network offers new opportunities on this score. The Express stores have become a substantial format he says to grow English apple sales and as the volume now justifies specific targeting of the Express customer, there is likely to be added impetus for bespoke offers in the months ahead.
Generally, the planning process is well advanced. “We have been working very closely with our principle suppliers, and I have met already with a number of our key growers. We run our own English Top-fruit Grower of the Year and the award of that accolade gave our growers the opportunity to get together for an evening with the Tesco team and our suppliers. One of the main things we have been talking about is better sharing of information with our supply base, in order to enable everyone to make decisions that are right not just for Tesco, but for them and for English apples and pears.
“Our focus has to be on identifying what our customers want. Our success is based on delivering for our customers, so let’s give them the apple and pear varieties they want to eat, rather than selling them what we have traditionally grown.”
A commercially-driven analysis of the English apple portfolio is crucial, he adds, and growers will need to make the hard decisions to grub varieties with limited potential and replace them with those that can realistically be expected to succeed in the long-term. “A good example of this is Discovery,” says de la Fuente. “We will still stock Discovery because we have a commitment to do so, but only the fruit that meets our specifications. However, the trade at large tells me that it is a rubbish apple and if this is the case, the fact that it is available early is not an issue. We should not be promoting the start of the English apple season with the worst apple there is.”
Not that Tesco is demanding that its growers change their production plans, he says. “It is very dangerous to tell people what to do, but what we can do - with our suppliers - is offer advice based on sound information. It has to be better to give a grower the research, sales and consumer data and let them make up their own minds.”
Neither should there be a wholesale change of direction that could jeopardise growers a decade down the line. “Growth of English Gala and Braeburn sales is not exponential and there will come a point where the balance is reached,” he says, “but at the moment we just cannot get enough of these two varieties.”
Tesco’s pro-British buying strategy is no symptom of blind patriotism. “Our customers want English apples and English varieties, but like all customers, they can be fickle and they will vote with their feet. It is not just about being English, the fruit has to match up with quality specifications too. There is some fabulous fruit being grown in continental Europe and if that is the benchmark, we have to make sure that the English fruit we offer our customers lives up to it,” de la Fuente says.
Tesco is at the latter stages of negotiations with the Brogdale Horticultural Trust, over its intention to sponsor the guardian of England’s apple and pear heritage. “We are conscious that we have an obligation as a big player to assist in preserving the heritage of English fruit and if the industry is grubbing varieties for commercial reasons, there is a danger that some will become extinct. Just because an old building doesn’t give you what a new one might, you don’t knock all the old buildings down.”
He adds that consigning varieties to history would also limit cross-breeding potential in the future. “There will inevitably be certain varieties that are commercially unviable in their own right that nevertheless have genetic attributes that could be used to improve another variety that perhaps falls down in some respects. We should not simply lose the parentage forever and Lady Jane Garrett at Brogdale is performing an important service to the industry.
“We can help not just by sponsoring the trust, but also by publicising Brogdale as a place for our customers to visit,” says de la Fuente. Brogdale will again work with Tesco immediately after the National Fruit Show this October, by co-ordinating the best of British Fruit Show, which sees the best of the show fruit being displayed at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.
As an illustration of its understanding of the importance of the cross-breeding process, as well as its long-term customer focus, Tesco has invested in exclusivity on the first truly green English variety Greenstar. The Belgian-bred cross between Granny Smith and Delcorf is being grown by Adrian Scripps and is earmarked for great things in the next few years.
As well as dancing with the industry, Tesco intends to sing from the same hymn sheet to ensure that its objectives dovetail with those of its growers and suppliers.
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