The rain may have come down in torrents on Wimbledon’s opening day, but there is every indication that the multiples - doubtless encouraged by the drought - are gearing up for their customers to enjoy long summer evenings.

I make the point as the number of ready-prepared barbecue dishes and ready-prepared vegetable kebab dishes seems to be expanding by the hour.

Their designs almost render them capable of being classed as works of art. Therefore, they are costly when it comes to manual labour.

A case in point are Tesco’s new 290g vegetable kebabs at £1.99 which manage to put butternut squash, babycorn, courgettes, red onions, and red peppers on a stick with mathematical precision.

There were also some other “novelties” associated with this kebab-style of eating in terms of fruit and veg which caught my eye as well as a sunflower seed salad, described as mild, at £1.79.

I was also taken with a new catchphrase, “Shake and Snack”, used to describe a chicken Caesar Salad at £1.89.

And to bring readers back to the subject of availability, I was always told that Rainier cherries were a speciality of the west coast of the US, but on a nearby shelf they turned up from France at £3.49 for 300g.

It just goes to show that along the road to the retail shelf, varieties are losing the strong associations they once had with specific sources. There was a time when King Edward potatoes were as British as Cox apples, no disrespect to the New Zealanders, of course. But at Marks & Spencer it is now possible to buy 2kg of new crop King Edwards from Israel for £1.99.

Meanwhile, also at M&S, mixed green vegetables (the ones you boil) are going from strength to strength. Tenderstem Tips (is that another variation on the theme?) and extra fine beans from Kenya in 200g mixed packs for £1.49 looked really appetising. I was left wondering if the secret is just good stock control at a time when the temperatures have been around the 90°C mark.

July is a time when buyers are particularly pre-occupied with predicting shelf occupancy. Soft fruit can deteriorate overnight, and while the UK cherry season is not far off, and things look good in that direction so far, there is always a potential problem with splitting if the weather changes.

The summer stonefruit season to date has been somewhat of a mix-and-match affair with rain in Spain before the Italian and French seasons come into full play. Meanwhile, Israel is filling the gap, or perhaps simply providing a welcome alternative, with plums.

But I wonder whether the unique nature of Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference speciality Israeli stonefruit - peachcots at £2.99 for six (which the on-pack recipe identified as plums) - is really likely to get recognised. Everyone tells me the hybrid is unique, but this doesn’t seem to have hit home with the consumer. Perhaps it is another job for Jamie Oliver and friends.

Waitrose earned considerable coverage last week by introducing cooking fruit, and I was very eager to see it in store. Well, you can hardly accuse the retailer of miscommunication. The labelling says it all, so if you miss the signage on the shelf, the packs really shout it out.

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