UK asparagus in basket

UK supermarkets are already able to stock 100 per cent domestic-grown asparagus on their shelves following a bumper start to the season, with some suppliers reporting up to ten times the amount of stock than they had at the same time last year.

This year's UK asparagus campaign, which kicked off on 23 April, has seen growers harvesting their crop up to four weeks earlier than usual as a result of unseasonably warm weather.

'This time last year only around 5 per cent of asparagus on retailers' shelves was British. Now there is 100 per cent British crop in store,' British Asparagus reported in late April.

'To have such an abundance of asparagus so early in the season is incredible,' noted grower Chris Kitchen. 'In all my years of growing I've never seen anything like it – but then we were saying the same last year for very different reasons, the conditions were so cold we didn't have so much as a spear to pick.'