Dartford-based fruit supplier AG Thames has announced the arrival of the first commercial volumes of Australian breeder Oz Peach's stonefruit series into the UK market.
The company has confirmed that nectarines and peaches, imported from Zimbabwe and South Africa are now available in all major UK supermarkets.
"Not only is the quality of the Oz peach and nectarine series from the southern hemisphere excellent, the fruit also has a longer shelf-life than other early peach and nectarine collections," said Danny Francis, business unit director of stonefruit at AG Thames.
The fresh produce giant invested in an exclusive planting, breeding and marketing agreement for the Oz series back in February 2010.
The range, which includes very early nectarine and peach varieties, could potentially crop from mid-March, requiring very low chilling units.
Back in April 2001, Francis told Eurofruit that the range could revolutionise the early offer by bringing earlier, fresher varieties into the UK market.
Francis added: "The Oz collection will be particularly interesting to growers and retailers alike.
"It provides the grower and retailer access to strong early season fruit at a time where consistency has been difficult to achieve.”
Meanwhile, Ben Clapham, director of Newstairs, AG Thames' innovation arm, recently travelled to Zimbabwe and South Africa, with growers from Europe and North America, to research the commercial production of the Oz series.
An AG Thames spokesperson said: "The purpose of the visit was for our grower-partners to see first hand the fruit range growing on mature trees, giving them insight into how production will look over the forthcoming years."
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