market report 8th,12th 2011

Dear All
Well it's been a wild weather week and the high winds and rain have certainly kept the shoppers at home. Trade could be described as "slow" at best and there's not a huge amount to report but let's have a quick run through.
Vegetables
Italian new potatoes are now into the main crop - they look brighter and our Steve tells me they taste better.
Still plenty of nice onions in Spain but that's the main problem ...they are still in Spain ! All the ambient lorries are now booked up till after Christmas and all that remains available are refrigerated lorries at £3700 a trip. Our grower decided to send his onions to us via ship to the port of Liverpool but the weather has been so rough that the ship has been unable to dock. The vessel is due in at 7pm tonight so fear not, lots of nice fresh onions for next week. Prices maybe up a copper or two just to cover the extra haulage costs.
There's been a little more interest in beetroots this week, I can only guess that one of our lovely TV chefs has been dabbling.
The Madagascan lychee season has just started and the first air-freight samples have arrived the UK. They are a touch too expensive at the moment but we expect the sea freight product to dock in the UK next week so prices will be more reasonable. Last year the season was a disaster because the sulphite levels on the product were too high and growers received very low prices for the fruit. This year exporters have had to give commitments re: prices back to growers before even receiving fruit. It's hard to believe but in the next few weeks 13,500 pallets of lychees will leave the tiny island of Madagascar. Keep a look out and I'll let you know when the cheaper product arrives.
Fresh jumbo cranberries have sold better this week and the quality is excellent. We've sold more of these than we have ever done of the standard product from the USA.
Strawberries have continued to upset folk all week or rather the price has.
Changeover time for green seedless grapes , we have now finished with the Brazilian festival and are currently working a nice sample from Namibia of all places. This is just a stop-gap and we have a pallet of XXL berry south African grape due into Preston Mon/Tues next week.
The first AA Black Giant plums were fabulous and even though they were expensive they sold out very quickly . These have now finished and the new plum in is a Pioneer variety. This is a red plum and is considerably cheaper than the black giants. The peach and nectarines have come down in price too now
Well that's pretty much it , I did say it was a slow news week
take care and see you all next week
Andy

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