Britain’s leading cherry growers are confident they can boost their future sales at home and abroad as a result of a £2 million investment in the latest cherry grading technology that has just completed its first full season in operation.
“It means that we can now deliver a much more consistent product to consumers via our supermarket customers,” explains Matt Hancock, managing director of Norton Folgate, the specialist cherry marketer part of the Poupart Group. “We’ve also seen an immediate benefit with our supermarket customers, with a more consistent product on retail shelves all over the UK.”
The Kent-based company has invested some £2m in a cherry grader, which includes an eight-lane optical sizer manufactured by Unitec, a world leader in packing technology for the cherry industry.
The Italian company’s industry-leading Cherry Vision 2 machine, which is used widely in the cherry industry in Chile and the US, is the first to have been installed in the UK and has just completed its first full season in operation.
“We’re very happy with the results,” says Hancock, as the last volumes of cherries pass though the facility in the middle of August. “It’s been a big change for all of us, and we’re delighted things have gone so well.”
Six leading English cherry growers have committed their fruit through the new facility close to Sittingbourne in Kent for the next several years. Their decision to also join together in a new marketing group called British Cherry Growers has been very favourably received by all types of customers, says Hancock. They welcome the direct link to the grower as well as the more consistent quality fruit it is now able to supply.
“At the same time, British Cherry Growers is an opportunity for us to grow our presence in export markets,” he explains. “Britain produces top-quality cherries, and now that we can grade to the highest standards it’s clear that the export opportunities are becoming more interesting for us, especially in the late season, from mid-July and through August with stored fruit.”
British Cherry Growers has made its first shipments to customers in Europe, and they are looking even further afield to the Middle East and Asia, where they’ve started to scout out some opportunities.
The UK is set to produce significantly larger volumes of fresh cherries in the next few years. Extensive new plantings, both open and covered, have been made in the major leading growing areas in southern England, with some production now in the north too. British Cherry Growers marketed some 1,000 tonnes of cherries this year, and is targeting sales of more than 2,000t by 2020.
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