The pack included passion fruit, lime, rambutan, physalis, kumquats and more unlikely; a tamarind.

Meanwhile, for most consumers an orange is an orange, despite the fact mainstream varieties such as Navel and Valencia are clearly labelled. But blood oranges, as they are traditionally known, appear to have lost the plot.

I remember research in the 1970s by Outspan, found the name put people off. Since then, they have become ruby oranges or just plain pigmented.

Nevertheless, it was quite a breakthrough when supermarkets started to identify Castellanas as juicing oranges.

What seems to be new is that Sainsbury's now appears to be applying the same idea to grapefruit. A family net of pink juicing grapefruit from South Africa at £1.99 is certainly a novel idea ñ particularly as the pack promises a minimum of a litre of juice will result from squeezers' efforts.

Squeezing citrus may not be the most convenient way to a glass of juice for many consumers, but at the other end of the scale Asda has pushed the barriers of convenience in barbecue food one point further with a £1.78 pre-pack of mushrooms and chopped garlic, barbecue-ready in their own foil sleeve inside a punnet. Open it up, fold it down, and hey presto.

It might sound expensive, but that argument also surfaced when bagged salads first appeared.

The cooler weather has brought the tomato business back into focus with the result that there now appears to be plenty of fruit available. In fact, I often wonder whether customers are confused with the ever-increasing range, not just of salad tomatoes, but cherries, plums, various Italian speciality types, not to mention the combination of vines and colours.

Perhaps the answer is to give greater prominence to the variety itself. In the organic range in Waitrose, I came across Sultan's Jewel for £1.69. At the very least the name sounds splendid.

Marks & Spencer is going down the same route with Orange Rosa, now classified amongst others as Best of Season. I wonder how this is affecting sales of the rest of the store's tomato range.

There also seems to be a new trend in point-of-sale (pos). Supermarkets were originally very cautious about pos material, but now no self-respecting branch would be without its posters and pictures of dedicated growers who labour long and hard to meet the standards set.

Again, M&S is carrying the message to the checkout by promoting quality fruit available on those barriers which customers use to separate their purchases from the next in the queue. Not quite the case of shutting the stable door, perhaps more of a useful reminder.

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