The summer season has been a mixed bag, with periods of heavy rain interspersed with bouts of warm sunshine.
However, this unpredictable weather has had an unexpected upside: it’s led to a bumper crop of high-quality strawberries.
Following the rainy start to the summer, a period of warmer weather has resulted in a surge in the number of strawberries ripening for sale, according to a leading fruit buyer.
A staggering 200 additional tonnes of strawberries from growers nationwide are landing in supermarkets right now.
Mansfields, a fruit grower based in Chartham, Kent, reported that despite overcast skies, the quality of the strawberries was “very good”, as the conditions allowed the fruit more time to develop.
Lee Port, chief executive of Mansfields 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”.
He continued: “This will result in an abundance of strawberries, roughly an extra 40 to 50 tonnes a week until the end of August. The good news is they are big, juicy and luscious.”
Tesco is one of the major supermarkets where shoppers can purchase surplus berry crops, and join the fight against food waste while doing so. Tesco’s berry buyer, Callum Baker, commented that the retailer is “glad to be able to provide them [strawberries] for customers”.
Those lucky enough to have attended the nation’s favourite summer sporting event, Wimbledon, may have tasted the difference in the strawberries offered alongside cream this year.
But you didn’t need to attend the tennis tournament to enjoy the best of them. Britons have taken to social media to share the best summer berry finds in supermarkets.
One Lidl shopper took to X, formerly Twitter to share her surprise at the strawberries being sold in stores, urging to “look at the size of this strawberry from Lidl”.
A Sainsbury’s customer wrote: “Thank you! After several years of buying and binning strawberries (and other fruit) from multiple retailers I bought a punnet on Tuesday and I’ve LOVED eating every single one. Finally! What a joy!”
A second Lidl fan shared: “Buy British they say! Absolutely I say! Amazing strawberries Lidl GB.”
The extra juicy strawberries have been around for a few weeks now in the likes of Lidl, Morrisons, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Co-op – the latter of which is the first supermarket to sell British-only strawberries in-store.
Berries including strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries are the UK’s most popular fruit category, accounting for 28 percent of all fruit sales, and an impressive annual value of £1.7billion.
