Picota cherries

Producers of Spanish-grown Picota cherries will focus this year's advertising campaign on enhancing UK shoppers’ understanding of the fruit’s origin.

Packaging will be redesigned with a new ‘Catch them while you can' slogan that aims to emphasise the short season of the cherries grown in Spain’s Jerte Valley region.

Last year, 10m punnets (2,500 tonnes) were sold in the UK during a five-week Picota season; a 75 per cent increase on the previous record of 2.5m punnets (625 tonnes) in 2010.

Pilar Díaz Flores, technical director of the Cereza de Jerte (Jerte Cherry) Denomination ofOrigin Regulatory Council, said: “Picota cherries have been seen by - and bought - by a large proportion of UK shoppers so we now want to underline that Picota is a unique and high-quality fruit, which offers fantastic value for money, great taste – and that consumers have a limited season in which to buy them.”

Whilst the harvest date is still to be confirmed, first shipments of Picota cherries are expected to arrive in the UK in the week commencing 18 June.