As fast-paced and furious as they are, the grass roots of the fresh produce industry never fails to surprise both their customers and consumers with innovation after innovation, despite the tough financial climate that has stretched over the last couple of years. Seed houses, rightly pre-empting future interest in premium end and innovative products post-recession, are now releasing all kinds of colourful, convenient, robust and most importantly, commercially viable products, while also trading in on consumers’ move back to basics.
Breeders are looking at traditional vegetables and fruits and adding something a little different to the mix in a bid to evoke feelings of familiarity as well as discovery. From yellow runner beans, a rainbow mix of different beetroot leaves (to be eaten as leafy vegetables), purple and red carrots, red Brussels sprouts, globe artichokes and red Little Gem, to baby watermelons, purple grapefruit and tamirillos, the fresh produce industry should get ready for an explosion of colour in the aisles and on our plates.
“After a couple of years of consolidation and trading down, we are seeing renewed interest in our premium end species and varieties,” says Sakata UK’s managing director Stuart Cox. “This can be seen at retail level, as the discounters’ market share is flat while premium retailers are now seeing growth in their grocery sales.”
Tozer Seeds’ UK sales manager David Rogers also feels that a new phase is beginning for the industry. “We are seeing renewed interest in new product lines and our customers are once again willing to put time and resources into product development,” he explains. “This is a contrast with the last few years when our customers have been more focused on consolidating and maintaining business.”
Tozer Seeds caused a stir in Marks & Spencer last January with the launch of sprout flowers -a cross between Brussels sprouts and kale - and the product is being relaunched in the same retailer now. The deep purple stem leads up towards a frilly, kale-like sprout top and all of the plant can be consumed. Rogers describes the launch last year as a “great success” and hopes to see the vegetable take off in 2011.
Not one to be kept behind, the creator of Tenderstem brocoli, Sakata UK, will launch a salad turnip this year, as well as concentrate on new and interesting beetroot types. Currently coded as SC9-303, the salad turnip variety has a sweet taste and juicy texture and can be eaten raw. It is also dual purpose and its leaves can be steamed or stir-fried.
“Beetroot continues to enjoy a renaissance as infused flavoured roots combined with new packaging promote beetroot from a traditional pickled vegetable to a trendy salad item,” says Cox. “Sakata has already launched two successful varieties in recent years - Kestrel F1 and Cardeal F1. For 2011, Red Hawk F1 [formally BEC113] will be launched in its first year of commercial sale. Red Hawk F1 is earlier maturing than Kestrel F1 and Cardeal F1, and shows excellent field performance in terms of foliage disease resistance combined with dark coloured, globe-shaped roots.”
Sticking with a colourful theme, Elsoms has been developing a selection of multi-coloured beetroot leaves for dual-purpose use, as well as enhancing its purple sprouting broccoli, Brussels sprout, swede and bean offer.
“Most of the interesting products start out in amateur gardening or vegetable box schemes,” says Elsoms’ crop specialist Keely Watson. “But there is always a demand from the multiples and each one wants what the others do not have. The end supplier wants something unique, like the carrot variety Purple Haze. The Brussels sprout offer has standardised over the past year - now, varieties of Brussels sprouts include disease resistance and are generally cleaner, with less need to spray. We are now making sure that we can offer a string of Brussels sprout varieties that can grow throughout the year in different geographical places across the UK.
“There has been a renewed interest in purple sprouting broccoli,” she continues. “There has always been a level of interest, but not quite in a commercial sense. It was in fashion one minute and out the next. We will be looking at more varieties in the future and swede is another up and coming flavour.”
Brassicas are in the spotlight at the moment and after several seasons of low-key development trials, Sakata is launching a series of new cabbage varieties this year. Fighter F1 and Arcticus F1 - two new white storage varieties ideally suited for processing - have both demonstrated excellent field and storage performance. “Sakata has long been associated with sweet-tasting Primo round cabbage and although this type of cabbage is declining in popularity in the UK, it is launching the soon-to-be-named K3-537 in 2011,” says Cox. “K3-537 is a very attractive, smooth, dark green cabbage weighing 750-1000g, with excellent field health.”
Courgettes have been under the spotlight at Tozer Seeds, with a focus on developing spineless plants, which will aid picking and reduce fruit damage prone in the conventional dark green, shiny courgettes. Varieties Tuscany and Midnight live up to this brief and in addition, Tozer Seeds has created some speciality types, like Safari, with contrasting green and white stripes; Bambino, which is for the baby fruit market; and Sunstripe for a yellow and white striped variety. The selection also includes Piccolo, which has small striped fruits and for marrows, where demand is static or declining, Bush Baby produces shorter marrows of
20-25cm in length, appealing to smaller households.
And the future is also looking bright in the way of crop research with a new powerhouse for research into food, land use and climate change set to be formed in the spring. SCRI and the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute will unite as the James Hutton Institute, strengthening Scotland’s rural-environmental research capacity and further enhancing their international competitiveness. It will be the first institute of its kind in Europe and the new organisation is expected to create an international office to reinforce its global presence.
SCRI’s genetics team was described earlier this year as “the world leader in barley and soft fruit genetics” by independent experts. Macaulay competed for and won more than
£5 million in new research contracts last year, including £1.8m from the European Commission.
Chairman of the SCRI governing board Peter Berry said: “My board was united that this new venture will be able to undertake research of global importance and will once again demonstrate to the world the excellence of Scottish science and innovation. It is one of the things for which Scotland is rightly famous. SCRI and the Macaulay already share many areas of common interest; together we will bring scientific excellence with delivery.”
OUT WITH THE OLD?
GrantScape has provided a £294,000 grant to the Grow With Wyre Landscape Partnership Scheme to create a new orchard containing rare species of fruit trees.
The two-hectare orchard, located near Bewdley in Worcestershire, is being planted with around 170 trees of different traditional fruit varieties that were grown in the Wyre Forest.
It is hoped that the orchard will act as a “gene bank” to ensure the survival of rare fruit trees for future generations. Fruits include perry pears, plums, quince, medlar, and varieties of cherry, such as Elton, Blackeagle and White Heart.
Saul Herbert, of Natural England with the Grow With Wyre Landscape Partnership, told the BBC: “We have researched old records and heard from people reminiscing about what fruit used to grow in this region and that has enabled us to produce a definitive list of fruit varieties that used to grow in the Wyre Forest.
“The Wyre Forest region was a massive fruit-growing area for more than 150 years, as the orchards here produced fruit for towns and cities, like Birmingham.”
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