The British asparagus industry is once again backing a promotional drive aimed at raising awareness and increasing consumption of the vegetable in the UK.
The 2009 campaign, which is backed by Kitchen Garden Produce, Barfoots, Flamingo, Wealmoor, S&A Davies and The British Asparagus Growers Association, is focusing on helping consumers recreate restaurant-style food at home on a tight budget.
'We're all aware that money is increasingly tight, so our new collection of recipes encourages people to treat themselves at home rather than spending money eating out,' said campaign spokesperson Sian Pickard of Flamingo.
And Ms Pickard explained that despite a tough season last year that saw overall yields hit by wet weather, popularity of asparagus remained high.
'Growers are predicting better yields this year due to better fern production last August than the year before, as well as an increase in production acres for 2009,' she said. 'However, we predict that there will still be a greater demand than availability ensuring that British asparagus will maintain its iconic status.
'In the time we have been working as an industry to promote our product we have seen penetration rise from 2.7 per cent to a high of 14.6 per cent during the 2007 British season, and our goal is to regain that level of penetration and see if it continues to rise steadily as we introduce new customers to the product,' she added.
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