SOME FOODS TO WATCH

Wondering how long it’s taken certain foods to reach shelves, and what’s happened to it to ensure it gets there looking fresh? Here’s a quick guide…

✢ APPLES Although these are native to the UK, many of our apples come from abroad, particularly New Zealand.

They’re shipped in refrigerated containers and treated with gases to prevent over-ripening.

✢ BANANAS Usually picked when green in Central America, it takes

over a week to ship them, in plastic, to help preserve them. They’re then treated with a plant hormone to ripen them.

✢ BREAD Those ‘fresher for longer’ sliced loaves keep for a long time because they’ve been pumped full of enzymes to preserve them. But don’t be fooled by the bread ‘freshly baked’ in a supermarket’s bakery. Often, that’s prepared a couple of days in advance and finished off in store.

✢ FISH Food Standards Agency guidelines say that fish may be labelled as fresh if it has ‘been kept

chilled on ice, but not stored deep frozen’. But one report found a lot of the ‘fresh’ fish on sale at supermarket counters was nearly three weeks old.

✢ NEW ZEALAND LAMB It’s come a long way, transported in nearfreezing conditions – so it’s not surprising to learn it may be nearly two weeks old by the time it reaches your plate.

✢ POTATOES Smaller varieties, such as Jersey Royals, will be fresher, but the larger baking potatoes could be six months from picking by the time you buy them.