Three out of four of the UK’sbiggest supermarketshave increased their offering of Britishapples since last year, FPJ canexclusively reveal.

Tesco, Asda and Morrisons haveall upped shelf space comparedto the same week last year, whileSainsbury’s has dipped slightly.

New figures, collected for FPJby ProduceView, use data from a number of stores across a large area of the UK for the week ending Monday 13 October, compared to the same week last year.

Tesco more than doubled its Britishlines in the stores analysed from15 per cent of its total apple offeringin 2013 to 39 per cent in 2014.

Morrisons increased British apple shelf space from 38 per cent to 47 per cent, while Asda’s offering grew from 24 per cent to 36 per cent.

Sainsbury’s British offering was 52per cent of its total in 2013, dipping slightly to 46 percent for the same week and taking it to second place.

The discounters have reduced their offering, with Aldihaving 44 per cent British apples last year but droppingto 29 per cent in 2014.

Lidl has reduced its British appleoffering by almost half – from 22 to 13 per cent.

The news comes as the NFU has this week blastedsupermarkets for favouring imported apples over English.

The union claims cheap imports are displacing Englishfruit on shelves at the peak of the English season.

“Far too much space is being given over to importedfruit, including southern hemisphere fruit,” claimed WilliamWhite, NFU regional director. “Retailers have littleexcuse for selecting imports at this stage in the Englishapple season, especially when our own apples are sogood this year,” he said.

But Adrian Barlow, chief executive of English Apples& Pears, said so far this season 15,400 tonnes of Britishapples have been sold in retailers, compared to7,200t last year.

When asked by FPJ whether there aretoo many apple imports on British retail shelves, Barlowsaid that “one has to be realistic”. “People want GoldenDelicious, Granny Smith and Pink Lady. And we areunable to grow those varieties here. And late British-grownvarieties such as Jazz, Kanzi and Braeburn arenot yet available,” he said.

Barlow said that he prefers to focus on the “realareas of growth”, such as better in-store displays tocreate momentum in the category and, in turn, to bringbetter returns to growers.

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