Hopefully now the winter weather is well and truly behind us and we can look forward to some new fruits in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, due to the severity of the bad weather, the summer season fruits will probably be late in starting and will undoubtedly be shorter in supply. Whether or not this will have an effect on the overall quality or the price remains to be seen but we will keep you informed.

We are still fortunate to have good citrus fruit; the nadracotts from South Africa will be replaced this week with satsumas from Peru. The flavour is not as intense but they are very juicy, easy to peel and completely seedless.

The new season apples have started with Royal Gala from Brazil and South Africa as well as Golden Delicious also from South Africa. We are mixing these with a selection of Granny Smiths and Braeburns from France. Over the next few weeks the French apples will be replaced with those from New Zealand and South Africa. Coxs will also be available from New Zealand.

At present the only pears that we are using are the Conference variety from England but we have been informed that in a couple of weeks time Williams will be available from Argentina and probably Comice from South Africa.

The grapes, in our opinion, have been excellent with a good choice of red, white and black seedless. We mentioned in the last letter that a black seeded grape would be available but unfortunately it seems that this grape is not popular in the U.K. and the and it bypassed our markets for those in Scandinavia and other parts of northern Europe. Sorry about that!

Sourcing good stone fruit is currently very, very difficult! Plums are available but we think that they are just not worth having, so from Monday we will be replacing all stone fruit with a selection of the basic fruit  Please let us know if you have any preference with the replacements. Of course, if we suddenly find something worth buying in the stone fruits then we will add them to the orders.

For those of you that do not have berries in your order you might now wish to consider the strawberries and blueberries. Both are new season and very good. In a few weeks we should also be receiving Tulameen raspberries and very good blackberries. For the more extravagant amongst you, on Fridays, Frais de Bois and Gariguette strawberries are available but both are particularly expensive.

We will, in the next couple of weeks, be offering a range of organic breads and very competitively priced dairy products - for further information about these please speak to Andy.