More than 6,000 tonnes of strawberries will be eaten in the 14 days of Wimbledon - and Redeva's Ronnie McNicol believes soon we'll be eating UK strawberries all year round.
Redeva, the berry breeding programme owned by Redbridge Holdings, this wek announced that its customers will shortly be able to buy the best quality UK strawberries all year round - leading to a significant expansion in business for UK soft fruit growers.
McNicol - who celebrates 30 years in the soft-fruit industry during Wimbledon - claims that fruit at its trial site in Hull is already bearing flowers ready for the next crop.
"These new UK varieties will combine long-season natural production, with outstanding appearance, minimal wastage and excellent flavour to produce a consistent, high quality product over a greatly extended UK season," said McNicol.
"We've brought together some of the world's most successful fruit breeders into one team and, the first UK varieties are now fruiting. These will be with selected growers this autumn and on supermarket shelves before next year's Wimbledon."
Redbridge's Graham Blake added: "Growers in this country have worked really hard to improve yields and quality of fruit and we now boast some of the best soft fruit in the world."
The company's soft-fruit alliance with Worldwide Fruit, The Summerfruit Company, is working with its growers to find new UK varieties as well as bring the season forward by planting and growing earlier and using glasshouses. This year four strawberry varieties, Lambada, Elsanta, Darselect and Calgiant 4, have been grown exclusively for The Summerfruit Company by Peter Wensak in Norfolk. The first strawberry this year was Lambada, which was picked earlier than ever, at the beginning of March.
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