At this time of year words such as "new crop" and "new season" spring from the columns of the national media and become part of the signage on most retail shelves.

I'm all for giving English fruit and vegetables a boost, and there certainly can't be a better time to do it with the connotations between soft fruit and Wimbledon, the promise of healthy salads throughout the long, hot summer, and the plethora of young vegetables now coming on stream which range from beans and peas to sweetcorn and courgettes.

That being said, I wish such terminology was better understood by the public during the rest of the year. Retailers, in my view, could do more to capitalise on the arrival of fruit and vegetables from the links in the supply chain that are designated "out-of-season".

Apart from being an effective marketing tool to boost consumption, this could do much to sweep away the idea that out-of-season produce is something which was not quite nice. No-one ever seems to say that if produce is out-of-season here, it comes into season somewhere else and can be just as fresh and equally as healthy.

If one set of seasonality rules works for UK crops as far ranging as apples and asparagus, why can't the same rules apply to the imported equivalent?

The problem is perhaps that those who are in the industry are too close to it. Anyone who disputes the concept can carry out a simple test, for example, by asking friends if they know the source of grapes, melons, citrus or new potatoes at this time of the year, and then repeat the experiment for the winter months.

The gaps in public knowledge tend to show when research on sourcing is carried out. And without being partisan, I've even had answers that simply refer to the supermarket in which the purchase was made.

Meanwhile, at individual store level, I've recorded "new season" labels on prepacks when the last of the harvest is either struggling to be sold, or has been in cold store for so long that freshness is an afterthought.

In today's world, the quality of fruit and vegetables has probably never been better. There is endless time and trouble spent in evolving the right sort of packaging, which protects and enhances presentation on the shelf.

Taste is now understood as a real issue, not just by the arrival of a constant stream of new varieties, but by ready-to-eat lines and

home- ripening packs.

Greater activity enabling customers to anticipate first arrivals - whether Kentish coconuts or cabbage from Greenland - is surely the next step along the path to increasing both interest and consumption on a 12-month basis.

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