Jazz apples took centre stage at last week’s National Fruit Show, cleaning up with first, second and third place in the Nation’s Tastiest Apple contest.
The fruit, grown by Simon Bray, Weystreet Farm and Chandler & Dunn respectively, was so good that judges reported a “large margin” between the top three and the nearest rival.
Bray, whose Jazz apples were also voted Taste of Kent Awards Garden of England Top Apple at the show, said: “The team has worked its socks off and we are all over the moon but the acclaim has to go to such an amazing apple variety – it’s the ‘special one’ of the orchard.
“Jazz has all the attributes a grower wants and when it comes to taste – people absolutely love it so we really can’t take all the credit.”
Elsewhere at the show, other big winners included Brioso, a cocktail tomato that saw off 27 rivals to be named Tastiest Tomato. The variety was produced by Robert Farthing from Cornerways Nursery, who has been growing it for four years.
Second place went to Flavourfresh Salads with Sweetelle, and third was a new baby variety called Nebula, grown by Daniella Roe.
There were also competitions for the best trade stand, with Agrovista named best large stand, Kirkland UK getting the nod for best machinery stand and Orchard Network of Excellence picking up the best small stand prize.
The National Fruit Show was opened by parliamentary under secretary of state for natural environment and science, Lord de Mauley. He declared himself a “huge fan” of British fruit, stressing that the UK leads the world in taste, texture and technology.
He added that the government is investing £70 million into its agri-tech strategy, with a further £90m to help fund agricultural innovation.
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