English apple and pear grower AC Goatham & Son will supply around 350 million apples and 55 million pears this year (Sept 2020-Aug 2021).
“There remains a high demand for quality British apples and pears and due to the investment in our business and major programme of orchard planting since 2007 we have been able to meet this demand,” explains Ross Goatham, Managing Director AC Goatham & Son.
“We are currently supplying supermarkets with British Royal Gala, Cameo, Cox, Bramley, Braeburn and Conference and Concorde pears.”
AC Goatham supply Bramley apples for 12 months of the year and have the ability to supply British Royal Gala for a similar period but it is likely that the supply of Royal Gala this year will finish earlier due to the demand.
Currently British Royal Gala is the biggest variety in the UK, but AC Goatham have invested in a number of other varieties of apples and pears and the volumes of these is steadily growing.
As consumer tastes change AC Goatham’s unique direct relationship with their customers enables the company to work with them to ensure they grow the varieties which the customer would like to supply.
“We have invested significantly in our cold storage technology and capacity and this allows us to supply some varieties for 52 weeks of the year. Our harvest technology allows us to harvest 50 acres of orchards each day and this is likely to increase year on year. This speed is important so that we can get fruit into cold storage as quickly as possible. Innovation is at the heart of our business and we are working on a number of developments which are right for our business and the varieties we grow to continue the sustainable production of quality British apples and pears.”
For more information:
Ross Goatham
AC Goatham & Son
Tel: +44 1634 253424
Email: hello@acgoatham.com
www.acgoatham.com