English Apple and Pears (EAP) chief executive Andrew Barlow launched an attack on UK supermarkets for squeezing English apples off their shelves in an article in The Telegraph this week.
He accused store managers of not displaying domestic varieties prominently enough, and favouring foreign apple imports despite a bumper English crop this year. And he blamed them for the decline in UK apple acreage and fall in grower numbers.
But Barlow singled out Waitrose and Marks & Spencer as supportive of the industry, refusing to name those retailers that were not.
His remarks followed a recent EAP survey that found the amount of shelf space given to English Cox apples at some of the major supermarkets had dropped from 19.5 two years ago to 16 per cent this year.
However, Sainsbury's and Tesco denied shunning the English apple, both stating they were committed to promoting UK produce.
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