Wimbledon: Anyone for strawberries and cream?
Wimbledon is the largest single annual sporting catering operation in Europe. About 1,800 catering staff are required to operate these catering outlets and the quantity of food and drink served by them during the fortnight is huge.
Amongst the 300,000 cups of tea and coffee, 200,000 glasses of Pimm’s, 100,000 pints of draught beer and lager, 32,000 portions of fish and chips and 25,000 bottles of champagne are famous the strawberries and cream.
28,000 kg (112,000 punnets) of English strawberries are served with 7,000 litres of cream over the two week tournament. The strawberries are served in punnets of not less than 10 berries.
Price for a portion of a minimum of 10 strawberries and cream at Wimbledon
Strawberries are picked the day before being served. Delivered to Wimbledon at around 5.30am for inspection.
But British strawberry growers in some parts of the country are having their worst season in years. The British season begins in late-April and runs until October. Recent wet weather has cost some farmers hundreds of thousands of pounds, BBC Radio 4's Farming Today reports.
Strawberry grower Sandy Booth, from Hampshire's New Forest says his crop usually produces more than 2000 tonnes. "I think it's one of the most difficult seasons I have ever had in 20 years of doing this... as the weather is not one thing or another at the moment," he says. British strawberry growers in some parts of the country are having their worst season in years.