The mild winter and wet spring have led to bumper stone fruit crops, according to fruit buyers at the UK’s largest supermarket chain, Tesco.

Though there are quality concerns about some of the UK’s major crops, fruit buyers last week announced that a bumper crop of British cherries, high in quality, with “bigger and juicier” fruit has led Tesco to take on ten percent more this year, with the supermarket giant taking 810 tonnes of the fruit from UK growers in 2016, compared to 750t in 2015.

Tesco’s buyers said that cherry production in Scotland - where the growing season lasts for a further two weeks (well into September) after Southern England’s comes to an end - means it will be stocking home grown fruit for longer this year.  

On top of this, British apricots have found their way onto Tesco’s shelves this year; the supermarket has worked with one of its fruit suppliers to develop UK-grown apricots in recent years. Grown on 5,000 trees in Kent, the apricots are a late-flowering, specially developed variety that are better suited to the English climate, where growing the fruit commercially was formerly too risky due to their traditionally flowering around March.

Nigel Bardsley, managing director of Bardsley farms, which also produces apples, pears and plums, said the fruit is “Just as sweet and juicy as anything you’d find in Mediterranean countries” where they are traditionally grown. The fruit also carries the advantage of extending the growing season into September, when no other country is producing apricots.  

Bardsley said the changing climate is spurring on production, adding, “Generally, the British weather pattern has changed over the last few years and we tend to be getting milder winters and later springs which would suit apricot production.”

He hopes to be producing an annual crop of 400 tonnes within the next three years.

However, soft fruit growers have reported greater problems this year, with the season delayed by around a fortnight and high disease pressures.