Forget a punnet, strawberries now come in a ‘bucket’

Bargain packs of the fruit sold as mild weather means growers produce 30 per cent more

ENJOYED with cream and chilled champagne, British strawberries were once a rare treat for refined occasions. But the warm weather has produced a summer glut of the fruit, taking it rapidly downmarket.

Shoppers in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and M&S will find giant “buckets” of up to a kilogram of strawberries, dwarfing the usual modest punnets.

Growers have produced 30 per cent more this year due to the mild conditions and lack of frost, so Asda’s 700g punnet will be £2.50 from Saturday while Tesco’s 1kg punnet is £3.

M&S’S 700g strawberry punnet at £7 is nearly three times dearer than other stores but it said its berries have been specially selected to be extra large, with the average strawberry exceeding the size of a hen’s egg.

Berry sales now equate to about a fifth of total fruit consumption in the UK, overtaking apples and bananas. And strawberries accounted for more than half of all UK berry sales last year, totalling around £564 million out of sales of about £1billion.

Improved green-house technology also meant British strawberries arrived unusually early, with M&S and Tesco introducing the first batch in February.

According to the industry body British Summer Fruits, the strawberry season was only six weeks long 25 years ago, but industry investment has extended this by up to nine months.

Barrie Jones, senior strawberry buyer at Asda, said: “The mild weather in May means that the growers we work with have had to harvest much of our strawberry crop a lot earlier than expected.

“We initially thought there would be a mountain of strawberries on the farm leftover which supermarkets couldn’t sell. So, it’s great that we’ve been able to work with our growers to come up with a solution to tackle the results of the great British weather.”

Henry Maulik, strawberry buyer at Tesco, said: “We’re passionate about working with our suppliers so that no edible food goes to waste.

“Offering great tasting, high quality British strawberries at an extraordinarily good price has been hugely popular with our customers and helps support our growers.”