UK grocery retailer Waitrose has removed imported Golden Delicious and Red Delicious from its shelves as part of a major promotion for English apples and pears, which has already led to the company increasing its apple volumes by 40 per cent compared with last year.
As part of the supermarket operator’s Championing British campaign, Waitrose said it expected to be the only UK retailer where locally-sourced apples and pears accounted for more than 50 per cent of its entire range during the week, with that figure expected to rise during October.
Waitrose’s apple and pear buyer, David Mitchell, said the retailer planned to “bring on stream” its first limited volumes of British-grown Golden Delicious and Red Delicious during the month, while UK fruit is also expected to dominate the pear category in the form of English Conference, Concorde and Comice.
According to Rik Connor, business manager for British grower group Fruition, other examples of English products replacing imported topfruit will include organic UK Gala replacing European organic Gala and polybag Conference replacing polybag Rocha.
“Over 65 different varieties of apples and pears will be sold this season, with the Waitrose Traditional Orchard which was planted in 2008 at their farm at Leckford, Hampshire coming into supply with Heritage varieties now on fixture until the new year,” he said.
“Waitrose are also planning to support those growers that were hit by adverse weather (frost and hail) in May and early summer by selling packs of weather blemished apples in all stores later this month.”
The campaign is expected to bring Waitrose’s share of homegrown apples and pears to over 80 per cent in volume terms, Connor added.
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