Tougher times for French stonefruit

The year 2002 left the memory of one of the most difficult seasons in the last 10 years for Europe's principle stonefruit producers. The volume of the crop reached new heights with more than 4.2 million tonnes of peaches, nectarines and plums available to the market. You would have to go back to 1994 to find an equivalent level. French producers congregated with their European counterparts at last week's Europech and Philippe Gautier gauges their opinions of the UK market.