When the French summer fruits delegates came to London on their annual visit to meet the trade press last week I felt, above all else, that it illustrated an act of confidence.

Many European stonefruit crops are heavily reduced this season and prices are high. But floating on the Thames last week on what the representative growers would have called a bateau-mouche if we had been on the Seine, there was no doubting their enthusiasm.

Peach, and moreso nectarine growers, seem to be holding their own with Italy and Spain, although I am not so sure about the future of summer pears in the UK. With Dutch Conference now available year round and Portuguese Rocha pears in the same path, the window of opportunity must be smaller.

I have always been surprised that France has not featured more prominently as a source for cherries when UK supermarkets complain they cannot find enough. This is now being put to rights.

To my mind, the most exciting development is the enormous progress made in the new apricot varieties. So when committee chairman Daniel Obadia says that France will become the centre of European production, I have a feeling he is not too far off target.

It is worth remembering that generic activities do pay off. The world would have taken longer to recognise the merits of Golden Delicious, Granny Smith and Gala without Le Crunch.

Success can be judged in many forms and I remember being asked to appear before a Select Committee at the House of Commons to be questioned on whether French apples were being dumped to the detriment of English Cox growers ? such was the success of the marketing campaign.

Indeed, as an aside, it will be interesting to see what the French make out of the latest New Zealand immigrant Jazz which could well follow the same successful path as Pink Lady.

There are many growers and importers I have met over the years who admit to a sneaking regard for the French, or should I say their agency Sopexa. It?s not so much about how much the industries they represent have invested generically in a range of fresh produce, but how they have approached it. Simplistically they realise they are in it for the long haul.

Other countries have operated similar campaigns to a lesser or a greater degree, but have often fallen silent while the French continue to stick to their guns.

In some cases this has been simply because marketing boards ? the all powerful arbiters between the 1960s and 1990s ? which carried out the same function, have ceased to exist.

Nowadays the cash flows through a different route via category suppliers to their supermarket customers as part of a whole host of other ?marketing services? which even 10 years ago they little dreamed of fulfilling.

The French, in my view are not swimming against the tide, but instead making rather good use of it.