Crop Report

After a difficult few weeks with pests affecting the lettuce harvest, there has been an improvement this week, with far fewer aphids being found.

Our growers continue to work hard to manage the pest problems, taking action to strip back lettuce heads to remove aphids, harvest only heads without visible pest presence and skip heavily infested fields entirely, which has led to a much lower presence.

We expect lettuce to remain British until the end of next week, when it will begin to transition to Spain. As well as maximising British supply, this will help manage some of the weather-related challenges that are currently facing Spanish growers.

We are seeing a gradual improvement in mushroom yields following a challenging few weeks, where hot and humid conditions caused problems for growing.

As we are currently changing straw from the old to the new season, we are watching the crop very carefully, but to date, compost quality and performance is positive and there are no major yield reductions.

We will continue to monitor the crop closely and work with our suppliers to maximise availability.

We are entering the final throes of the British season, and we are seeing the normal availability challenges that affect the market at this time of the year.

Blueberries have already made the transition to Peru, but we are seeing some inconsistent early season quality, which means that the supplier is grading out more product than we would normally expect. However, this should rectify itself shortly as we get into the new season and deliveries increase.

Blackberries are moving to UK glasshouse production, which is putting some strain on availability, although we expect this to improve over the coming week. Some growers are bringing in imports to supplement British production, although we hope to avoid that. 

Raspberry availability is challenging, but stable. Strawberries are seeing some end-of-season availability issues, and we have concessions in place to try to support supply, including for size. 

All berries will be transitioning to new origins this month. In the meantime, it is worth noting that glasshouse fruit is traditionally softer, due to the growing conditions and speed at which it grows.

We are approaching the end of the British season, with the transition to Spain likely to begin at the very end of October or beginning of November. 

While availability is good, problems with pests continue to be a challenge. These are being found in significant quantities on farms, but we are working closely with growers and undertaking additional steps to try to minimise the impact on customers. 

Maintaining weight is still a major challenge for cabbage and concessions remain in place to support availability of both red and white cabbage. These are expected to be extended as we anticipate the problems continuing for some time, potentially throughout the season.

Pests continue to affect cabbage varieties, including Savoy and Cavolo Nero, with white fly and other insects impacting crops. We continue to work with growers to try to reduce the problems.

We are expecting to transition to Spanish supply at the beginning of November. It has been a difficult Southern Hemisphere season, marked by poor end-of-season availability. However, we have worked closely with suppliers and managed to mitigate many of the problems, with only a concession for size required to get us to the end of the season.

However, while this is good news, we are still expecting a poor Spanish harvest, with significantly reduced yields, which is likely to lead to problems, particularly at the end of the season. Despite this, quality and are size are expected to be good.