Customer demand for an early English apple drove the development of Discovery. However, the variety often under-performs. While it is expected to retain a niche value, growers and marketers alike are unwilling to take the variety any further volume-wise.
“Discovery is a struggle and will always be slow getting off the ground,” says Steve Maxwell. “We have about 30 growers producing Discovery for us, but returns were down again this year and it is a variety we are looking to get away from. We do not see a long-term future in it and I consistently advise our growers to look to other varieties.
“Discovery will not disappear altogether. It does have a small place in the market and there is a demand for early English fruit, but if we overload the market with early apples that perform inconsistently on-shelf and do not give the consumer the required taste experience, we will damage the perspective of home-grown apples in general and make life more difficult for the varieties that follow Discovery into stores.”
Herein lies the problem for suppliers. Extension of the season, as required by customers, often means trialing varieties not naturally suited to the time-slot.
Through its partnership with Enza, WWF has access to an extensive breeding programme, and Maxwell believes new, early strains will come from this arrangement. “We are looking at a number of New Zealand bred selections in English growing conditions and some look very promising,” he says. “If we’re honest, all that the early varieties are doing at the moment is fulfilling a market that is waiting for the big guns - Cox, Gala and increasingly Braeburn - to come along. Discovery doesn’t have the greatest legs and is therefore in a position where it cannot command the level of return that makes it viable in the long-term.” Early varieties, he says, are there to build up the market for the bigger volumes that come later. If prices stall early on, raising the ticket becomes a tougher task.
The Cox debate will run and run in England. It still represents the majority of the apple crop. It retains its enormous popularity with customers and consumers alike and therefore stands up as the flagship variety for English growers. It is relatively consistent in performance, in terms of taste and appearance both on fresh and post-storage. But in the last few years, alternatives have begun to surface. You would be hard-pushed to find anyone predicting the demise of Cox. But there are plenty of voices suggesting that its share of the English dessert apple crop could and probably should be downsized.
Gala volume has spiralled over the last few seasons and, although early predicitions were for a slight fall in volume in 2004, it is now expected that the production level will be broadly similar to last season - in the region of 12,500 tonnes. Braeburn volumes will more than double again this year - the latest forecast is for nearly 2,000t of the variety, a 117 per cent rise on last season. “I want as much Braeburn and Gala as I can get my hands on,” says Maxwell. “It is easier to sell, stores better and I would expect volume to pick up significantly in the next few years.”
David Morton, one of the founding members and chairman of West Country Top Fruit, believes the dependence on Cox has to be reduced. “It is not that Cox is a bad variety all of a sudden,” he says at his Aston Fruit Farm. “But English growers need to protect their place within the UK marketplace and an over-reliance on one variety can be a dangerous thing.”
There needs to be a general move away from heavy Cox reliance to guard against the really problematic years and the ever-changing perspectives of the major customers, he adds. While Morton would like to see Cox share of the English crop fall from its current 65 per cent to as low as 30 per cent, Maxwell begs to differ at this stage, preferring a reduction to 50 per cent.
Morton himself has a number of varieties in his Herefordshire orchard, but far from over-extending his portfolio, the third generation grower has halved the range of fruit he produces in the last 10 years. He has Delbard Estival and Worcester Pearmain as early fruiters, both of which he believes have decent long-term niche potential. They lead into Early Windsor, which stores well and also provides a good volume of the right sizes for the School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme. Gala is already Morton’s largest single variety in his “40-odd-acre” orchard, while Cox comes in second.
Jazz, the trademarked variety that WWF has boldly predicted could become a £25 million earner within five years, will become a big player on his farm with 5,000 trees already planned to be planted. Braeburn too is in his sights, with the first commercial planting due this winter.
“WWF have intimated they don’t want any Discovery after the next five years, so I’ve taken a look at my orchards and restructured accordingly,” says Morton. “We’ve also looked at a couple of other early varieties, but there is little potential there for the next 10 years.”
A few miles down the road at BH Savidge & Sons, Mark Savidge, co-founder of WCTF, has just planted 5,000 Braeburn trees to supplement the 100 five-year old trees in his orchard. Cox is his largest variety by volume, while Early Windsor is the second on the list - “a very under-rated variety”, according to Savidge. The farm also produces Discovery - but has pulled 50 per cent out in the last 12 months - as well as Bramley and Gala.
The WCTF bins are all sent into the central Man of Ross packhouse, run by another founder Andrew Jackson. “Having that control is wonderful,” says Savidge. “Grading, which is a big deal in awkward years like this one for instance, is carried out on a far more personal basis, because Andrew has ownership of the fruit himself and an interest in its welfare. The operation is also highly cost-efficient and has a guaranteed throughput, delivered by the grower members themselves.”
WWF believes it has around 40 per cent of the UK apple market share, but it also believes it is moving ahead in some of the varieties of tomorrow. Its share of the Windsor, Worcester, Spartan and Russet volume is considerably higher, while the newer varieties - including Jazz - coming through its development programme offer as yet untold potential.
A marketing desk is nothing of course without the right bank of growers behind it. Maxwell says: “We have a cracking group of growers in all the major growing regions of England. There is also a good age mix, with a large base of 35-45 year-old growers who are all willing to listen and invest in the right varieties to take them and the industry forward. Virtually all of our growers are still planting new trees, very importantly these include new Cox plantings which not only illustrates their confidence in the future of English apples, but also tells us that they intend to be around for many years to come.”
WWF - INTERNATIONAL CONCERN
Worldwide Fruit is an international fruit marketing and distribution company that specialises in the supply of top fruit to major UK multiple retailers - year round.
Its international procurement division sources a wide range of globally produced fruit, supported by locally based representatives.
Its unique shareholding structure means Worldwide Fruit is able to source the great proportion of UK top fruit production through the Northcourt Group and also access high quality New Zealand pipfruit export volumes from Turners and Growers (Enza), through the internationally-recognised Enza brand.
Created in 2000, in response to the changing and demanding world of UK retailing, Worldwide Fruit now has a turnover in excess of £100 million and has established a catalogue of premium suppliers from both the northern and southern hemispheres. The company is in the perfect position to maintain a continuous dialogue with its retail partners 52 weeks of the year.
The company has two key office locations in the UK, at Canterbury and Spalding, each providing specific marketing, technical and production expertise to growers and customers. Its Spalding site handles international procurement together with central administrative services. The site also provides packing facilities for a high proportion of imported and southern hemisphere fruit, including speciality lines, avocados and kiwi fruits. Most of the commercial sales teams are also located in Spalding.
The Canterbury office provides specific sales functions and manages UK-grown fruit. Particularly, this covers UK procurement together with the associated planning, distribution and logistics functions. It also manages the distribution of imported and southern hemisphere apples and pears that are handled by the principal WWF packhouses located in Kent.
The Worldwide Fruit Marketing Department is also based in Canterbury.
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