You have enjoyed lots of lovely spring produce from our local growers and we look forward to more charming, locally harvested fruit and veg in the following weeks as we enter summer. Oh how we love this time of year!
Fruit And Veg
Outdoor strawberries are now in stock! Newlands Farm, with over 150 years worth of farming experience will supply us with strawberries for the rest of the season. Further supporting Foodari's ambition to reduce plastic and food waste as much as possible, we are delighted to be supplying your strawberries in compostable punnets made from strawberry waste for the second year in a row.
Blackberries and raspberries are available from Hugh Lowe Farm, who supplied us with early season glasshouse strawberries. It's always such an exciting time to welcome back Kentish berries!
Rhubarb from Mockbeggar Farm is proving popular, with outdoor crops being available until at least September.
Boundary Farm continues supply of cabbages. Savoys have now come to an end, but you can now enjoy pointed for the next 8 weeks. His cauliflowers have just become available again and broccoli is also progressing well; we expect these to become available within the next week bringing an end to the challenges we have faced with brassicas recently!
Nikki at Sevenscore Farm has advised us that a lot of her crop has been damaged by the recent rain and storms, which sadly means an early end to her season is likely. Nikki has assured us she will prioritise us with the asparagus she can still harvest, and so far we have seen very few disruptions to supply thankfully.
Salads
Betts' salads are growing beautifully, and you'll be pleased to know that the full range of their local leaves are in stock. After numerous problems with salads from Spain, we are so pleased to welcome the local range back!
You're still enjoying lovely local cherry tomatoes from A Pearson Growers.
Dairy And Bread
The dairy market continues to be very volatile and prices are still rising with all producers. Expect to see milk, cream, cheese and butter prices continuing to move upwards. Whilst price rises are never good news, they are essential to maintain long term viability to our farmers.
There is no change to high prices and changeable availability on bread due to the ongoing situation in Ukraine. If you remember from our previous updates, with Ukraine being the world's largest grain exporter no wonder there is disruption to supply. For obvious reasons, unfortunately we cannot predict when these issues will be rectified.
Free-range eggs are back! Government have now lifted the ban on keeping birds inside while the country endured its largest outbreak of avian flu. Our farmers are now able to label your eggs as free range again, and this can be updated on your menus once more.
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.
Issues throughout the supply chain unfortunately means that prices have skyrocketed on Spanish produce over the past few months and show no signs of slowing. We are still facing intermittent challenges on availability and further pricing spikes, with melons and salad items being the most affected recently. Spain has had blow after blow with their produce so far this season; experiencing floods, trouble harvesting and then also striking and export bans. All is not lost though, the Brazilian season has recently started where we will see dramatic improvements with availability for melons thankfully.
Next month we look forward to welcoming top quality satsumas from the Eastern cape.
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!