UK: Berry farmers to harvest fruits of their labours

Scottish strawberry growers will not look back on 2010 with any great relish, as their peak harvesting season clashed with the harvesting of English crops that had been delayed through cold weather. But even if last year was not memorable for strawberry growers, a leading figure in the industry says the overall future for soft fruit looks bright, with increased demand from customers and the major retailers very much valuing the boost it brings to their sales.Nicholas Marston, managing director of Berry Gardens, the largest soft fruit trading company in the UK, with an annual turnover of more than 180 million, said the glitch in the 2010 strawberry harvesting season had been due to the cold spring in the main English growing areas. This caused these crops to be late and they clashed with the Scottish crop coming on stream.
With a very short shelf life, the soft fruit crop has to operate on a planned production time-table in order to avoid overloading the market, but during June and July last year, there was almost a 50 per cent over-supply. Marston said that, during periods of over-supply, it was critical growers and companies supplying the markets kept their packaging and distribution costs to a minimum, with the market operating to a maximum of 1.99 per punnet at those times. Commenting on the retail side, Marston described strawberries as giving retailers "very positive profitability per square metre of shelf space".