Our growers haven't had the easiest of growing conditions so far this year, but as always The Garden Of England never fails to deliver. With growers locally such as Bradley, Hulme, Betts and Bouchers to name but a few and only miles away from our warehouse, sourcing locally and seasonally has never been easier!
Fruit And Veg
Brassica's are growing beautifully from Trevor Bradley at Boundary Farm, and we are looking forward to receiving his broccoli, cauliflowers and Savoys imminently. The weather has played havoc with the season so far, so lets all hope for a much drier summer.
It’s always a sad day when the local season ends for one of our Kentish hero products, and we received the news from Nikki Dyas that unfortunately due to the heavy rain, she took the difficult decision to finish her season a little earlier than normal. The weather hasn’t been kind for our growers this year and we applaud the superb, albeit short season they have managed to give us.
We'll soon see local courgettes and courgette en fleur become available.
Is there anything better than a Kentish Berry? We are so spoilt for choice at the moment, with Marion and Jon Regan delighting us with raspberries and blackberries from Hugh Lowe Farms, and we have transitioned to Fiona and Hugh Boucher for their sensational strawberries, at Newlands Farm.
Further supporting Foodari's ambition to reduce plastic and food waste as much as possible, we are thrilled to now be supplying strawberries in compostable punnets made from strawberry waste.
Tom Hulme has started his cherry season in earnest with his award winning Merchants, we couldn't be happier to see the return of another Kentish hero!
Watch this space for gooseberries, plums, apricots and so much more over the coming weeks.
Potatoes
From one extreme to other other, we have had the wet weather affecting our vegetables, but now the hot weather is causing havoc with our potatoes!
Provenance potatoes warn us about the shorter shelf life of potatoes. The high temperatures at this point in the season will cause tubers to sprout rapidly and therefore we advise you to keep stocks as low as possible and if available, store potatoes in a cold environment (except Chipping potatoes). The sprouts can easily be knocked off and do not affect the cooking quality of the potatoes.
Salad
LJ Betts at Church Farm in Offham are spoiling us with the abundance of their salads; we have been so happy to welcome the arrival of rosso, oakleaf, cos, rocket and iceberg.
We are enjoying local piccolo cherry tomatoes from A Pearson Growers in Ash, and being high in flavour, beautiful in colour and small in size, these really are little beauties.
Further Afield
As you know, Foodari champions local and British produce, but when this is not available, we aim to give you the same consistency and short supply chain, working with growers throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
We will be moving to open field melons from Murcia in the coming weeks, which will ensure consistent availability and quality. We are thrilled to have secured new contracts with our Brazilian growers with increased volume, varieties and even a new brand! (Watch this space)
We can expect Argentinian lemons and oranges, Uruguayan clementines and additional shipments of Egyptian grapes during July.
As always, please interact with us through our social media channels, and be sure to look at our pages for immediate produce and availability news!
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