Andrew Wallace’s big ambition is to supply English cherries for 100 days and this season he’ll come very close to getting what he wants.
Four years ago, the Chilean cherry grower and his partner company FGA Farming bought up some 50 hectares of prime cherry farms near Faversham in Kent.
First, they imported production techniques learned in Chile. Second, they flew in more than 100 pickers from Chile to harvest their crop. And now they are introducing new late varieties, available in commercial volumes for the first time this season.
“We want to extend our supply of British cherries to 100 days [a year],” says Wallace, who soon expects to have 90 hectares in production, making him the single biggest grower of cherries in the UK.
“We’re not there yet, but we’re planting earlier and later varieties with fruit available from early June to late August, and we’ve brought in Chilean systems of production. We’re combining the best of Chile and the best of the UK.”
Wallace, whose great-grandfather left Scotland for Chile in the 1850s, has developed the project in partnership with San Clemente, the Chilean grower-exporter where Wallace worked for more than 30 years. The business is now a partner of FGA Farming in Faversham, where Wallace is based for much of the English summer.
It comes as no surprise that Wallace has found eager buyers for his cherries, and not just in the UK. Shipments to southern Europe have been particularly successful and the goal is to extend that to the Middle East and Asia – where, so far, small volumes have been marketed with success.
“We market through our own office near Cambridge which was set up back in 2008,” he says. “FGA Alianza is owned by three grower-exporters and me – Purafruta in Peru, as well as San Clemente and Gesex in Chile.
”We have table grapes, apples and stonefruit from the southern hemisphere for six months. When you add in cherries, from there and from here, we’re now working with retailers all year round.”
FGA Farming won first place for both its Regina and Lapins cherries at the prestigious National Soft Fruit and Cherry Show held at Brogdale in Kent in late-July. “It’s a great honour,” says Wallace.