July 29, 2024 (press release) –
The sudden arrival of warmer weather after a dismal cold and wet spring and early summer start has quickly brought on a crop flush of British strawberries.
This has meant many growers having more strawberries than they expected but now Tesco has moved in to help growers by taking some of the surplus crop.
As a result of the surplus, Tesco has bought an extra few hundred tons of British grown strawberries and has just put one kilo punnets on sale for £4.50 and 400g punnets for the Clubcard price of £1.90. The regular price for a 400g punnet is £2.50.
Taking more crops from suppliers when they're in abundance and offering them to customers is part of Tesco’s ongoing work to tackle food waste wherever it occurs – from farm to fork. Tesco believes that no food that could be eaten should be wasted.
Tesco berry buyer Callum Baker said: “After all the recent rain and cloudy start to the summer last week’s mini heatwave brought the strawberries on very quickly and meant that many growers suddenly had more than they expected.
“We work closely with our growers to make sure they are paid a fair price for their crops but also look for opportunities like this so that we can offer our customers great deals.
“With decent weather and temperatures in the mid-20s forecast for the coming week we’re glad to be able to provide them for our customers.”
Fruit grower, Mansfields, who are based in Kent, said that despite the recent cloudy weather the quality of their strawberries was very good and that the fruit had more time to develop.
The company, based in Chartham, near Canterbury are one of the UK’s biggest all-round fruit suppliers, and besides growing strawberries, also produce cherries, apples, pears, plums and apricots.
Mansfields CEO, Lee Port said: “The cold and wet spell earlier in the year plus the recent mini heatwave has resulted in pushing more of our predicted crop volume into late July and early August.
“This will result in an abundance of strawberries – roughly an extra 40 to 50 tonnes per week until the end of August.
“Thanks to Tesco, these surplus strawberries won’t go to waste and the good news is that they are big, juicy and luscious.”
The extra sunshine contributed to bumper strawberries right across Britain including Kent, West and East Sussex, Hampshire, Staffordshire and Herefordshire.
ENDS
Note to editors:
For anybody who has too many strawberries left over at home there are some great baking tips on https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/fruit-and-nuts/strawberry-recipes.html including recipes for making strawberry cheesecake tarts, strawberry semifreddo, as well as mater chef Jamie Oliver’s strawberry trifle traybake.
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