Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
‘We’re destroying cauliflowers while store imports from Spain’
‘We’ve got a glut at the moment so why are they selling ones from Spain?’
A farm near Canterbury is destroying 25,000 unwanted cauliflowers every week – while local supermarkets are still stocking imported Spanish varieties.
Trevor Bradley, who runs Boundary Farm in Wingham with his brother Stephen, says they are losing £5,000 a week due to an abundance of cauliflowers caused by unseasonal weather through autumn and winter.
But Mr Bradley says supermarkets fail to react quickly enough and instead of taking advantage of the surplus of local produce, continue to bring in cauliflowers from overseas.
“One of our guys went into Tesco and found Spanish cauliflowers next to English cauliflowers,” he said.
“We’ve got a glut at the moment so why are they selling ones from Spain?
“I think it’s the supermarkets being greedy. They think it needs to be on the shelves all the time or they might lose out. They get tied into contracts to buy in from Europe.
“The problem is supermarkets don’t react quickly enough to what’s happening here.
“They are still charging £1 to £1.50 but they could be reducing them and putting them on sale.”
Mr Bradley, whose farm spans 500 acres, says he is chopping up about 25,000 cauliflowers a week.
Instead of ending up on someone’s plate, it will be used as compost for next season’s crops.
“What we would like to know is, would the English public like supermarkets to continue to buy in from Europe to make up supply throughout the year or would they quite like to try something else when the English produce is not available?
“It’s not the end of the world if you don’t have cauliflower. Do people need it 52 weeks of the year?”
Mr Bradley says he is not the only farmer in east Kent with an overload.
In some cases, farms are teaming up with charity Feedback Global, which works with farmers to distribute unwanted produce to organisations such as homeless shelters, to save some cauliflower crops from going to waste.
British farmers receive between 15p and 20p for cauliflowers which can then be sold by supermarkets for up to £1.90.
While British produce can be on the shelf within a day, imported vegetables can be up to eight days old when they hit the shelves.
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