The Peak of the British Produce Season
Today is the peak day of the year for availability of British food, according to Morrisons, the UK’s fourth largest supermarket chain. Over 13 million pieces of fresh British produce will be on the stores’ shelves today – that’s enough for a portion of fruit and veg for every child in the UK.
Over 146 lines of British produce are available today including 22 lines of potato, 17 lines of mushrooms and seven different varieties of cabbage. The reason for this abundance is the 2011 climate: this summer’s weather was changeable – sometimes seeing a combination of sunshine and heavy downpours, often on the same day, in early summer. This helped vegetables to grow quicker, so Britain’s main crop is in season up to 10 days earlier than usual.
Morrisons is one of the largest food producers in the country, so it has used information from its own farms and fields to pinpoint today, Thursday 25th August 2011, as the most bountiful day for British produce to appear on the supermarket shelves.
Lincolnshire is one of the most bountiful counties in the UK and along with Lancashire, Cornwall and Worcestershire it is providing the most fresh British produce in store. This will surprise most people outside London as almost half (48%) of British consumers believe their own home county provides the most fresh produce.
Even though more than one in ten consumers in Lincolnshire (13%) struggle to identify British produce on the shelves and only 10% believe supermarkets support British, buying it is increasingly important to shoppers. Over two thirds (70%) of people actively look for British produce on the shelves and according to just over a quarter of people questioned (25%), buying British this year is a more important choice than when food shopping five years ago.
Top reasons to buy British include supporting British businesses and farmers (78%), knowing where food comes from (62%) and a better taste (31%). But despite the fact that when in season British produce is at its most affordable, only 7% choose it because it is believed to be cheaper.
Morrisons is the UK’s fourth largest food retailer with 459 stores. Uniquely, Morrisons sources and processes most of the fresh food that it sells though its own manufacturing facilities, giving the group close control over provenance and quality. In fact, Morrisons is ranked as a top five UK food producer, owning six fruit and vegetable pack houses, three meat processing plants, three bakeries and a food preparation factory all of which exclusively supply Morrisons. This ‘vertically integrated’ model enables Morrison to work closer to its supply chain.
