English wholesalers and growers met in Kent to discuss the promising apple and stonefruit seasons with fruit sizing set to be excellent.
Growers from Kent and East Anglia whose crops will be marketed through the season by fruit brokers RS Fruits Ltd from later this month met with representatives from various wholesale markets.
Ron Salter, managing director of RS Fruits, set up the company six years ago. He additionally represents soft fruit and asparagus growers. More than 40 guests toured two orchards at the site in the north of Kent near Faversham.
Wholesalers were assured that they would receive apples of an equal quality to those delivered to the supermarkets this season.
Sandys Dawes, Upper Warden to the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers, told the group he is anticipating picking the first Discovery apples by mid-August, where he adds there is still a steady demand, and asked for wholesale support for Early Windsor which ripens around 10 days before the first Cox.
Henry Bryant at the Bounds Farm, also on the tour, was picking the last cherries in a year where quality “has not only been superb, but volumes in many cases have substantially increased”. Now he is looking forward to a repeat performance for plums, then apples and pears.
On his farms' 350 acres, which also grows blackcurrants for processing, the new crop of Bramley apples have already made “remarkable size”, and the Conference pears “look promising”.
Bryant said: "I value these events because they represent an ongoing opportunity to not just discuss the forthcoming season, but get a real feel as to how we can help our wholesalers perform.”
