David Shapley takes a look around the UK's produce aisles.

You can always tell when autumn is in the air. Citrus starts to become a major line with the multiples after sitting on the shelves all summer

and being swamped by soft fruit and melons.

The first green-tinged easy peelers are already in store, and still not eating particularly well in my humble opinion, which may account for the fact that oranges are getting more shelf space.

And how things have changed. There was a time when to get a brand name on a pack was virtually impossible. Yet today they are proliferating.

A good example is the Outspan pre-pack at Sainsbury's. While not to be outdone, it was intriguing to see that Tesco is now featuring Fair Trade fruit from the same source.

If you want to get ahead in fresh produce retailing, get a new variety, seems an adage which everyone is taking to heart.

Marks & Spencer has recently come up with a "new" English apple variety called Sunrise, with a four- pack retailing at £1.69.

Records show that its English pedigree goes back to 1897, and its origins come from a Northern Spy seedling which I had always considered to be a variety favoured by the processing industry.

Nevertheless some have survived in Hereford according to the information on the label. M&S tells me there are still two growers left in the country and the apple was only on trial for a week because of volume. It will reappear next year in heavier quantities and be marketed earlier.

On the sub-tropical front there has been some movement, particularly for avocados. While recent headlines have been about giant fruit weighing more than two pounds from Tesco, Waitrose has been getting on quietly with a more reasonable sized "giant" fruit.

What intrigued me is that that it is an exclusive Hass hybrid called Lambs' Hass, and apparently there are others in the pipeline.

The winter is also the time for vegetables, although talking to growers I have a feeling that a gap may be appearing shortly in several brassica crops because planting conditions earlier in the year were so poor.

Potatoes too, seem to be suffering, with incredibly high dry-matter content. In the weeks ahead bruising could be a problem.

At least there seem to be plenty of onions, and among the bulbs in Tesco I was interested to see that small netted Supasweets are now getting some eye-catching packaging as befits something special.

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