Scottish soft fruit growers might be able to corner a key market section of sales of the UK’s second most popular soft fruit, blueberries. A leading researcher and plant breeder has claimed that despite the ongoing issues associated with post-Brexit labour shortages which have seen growers moving out of Blueberry production, Scotland’s unique climate offers the opportunity to capture the premium end of the market with the superior flavour and eating experience of berries grown here.
Susan McCallum of the James Hutton Institute said that although blueberries stood only behind strawberries as the nation’s favourite soft fruit – accounting for an estimated £416 million of a total soft fruit spend of £1.6 billion – more than 70% of the product on supermarket shelves was likely to have spent several weeks in transit on a ship as they tended to be imported from countries many thousands of miles away.
She said that while major producing countries such as Peru - which was now the major exporter on the world stage – benefited from being able to supply the crop 52 weeks of the year while getting two harvests from the same bushes each year, the Scottish growing season, while considerably shorter, offered major benefits in terms of both fruit size and taste.
Source: thescottishfarmer.co.uk
