Articles
IMPORTING FRESH ASPARAGUS – A PERSONAL VIEWPOINT.
As I got close to a town called Tracy, I started to climb a small hill.
Stretched out before me in the San Joaquin Valley I saw my first plantation of asparagus of the trip.
I was so impressed by the sheer scale of the planting that I pulled off the highway and stopped the car.
I was taking pictures, when the grower who owned the farm drew up along side and asked me in a very polite manner, what the hell I was doing.
Once he was able to understand my accent and accept my explanation he invited me to visit the farm for a closer look and to have the odd vodka and tonic.
Not only had I discovered the famous hospitality of Californian asparagus growers but also the difference in scale between asparagus production in the UK and California.
At that time the total area of production in the UK was around 1 000 acres while in California there was then about 30 000 acres.
I tell this tale because it was a very humbling experience and I felt then not unlike I feel today.
As secretary and founder of the United Kingdom Asparagus Growers Association I represent 120 growers producing asparagus off 600 acres.
The total area of asparagus in the UK is approximately 1 730 acres.
So amongst you ladies and gentlemen I feel like a very small fish in a very large pond.
Of course British asparagus is the best in the world so what we lose in quantity we more than make up in quality.
The UK market however is a large market and growing.
In 1991 imports were 2 167 tonnes and my company, Exotic Farm Produce Limited, imported well over 1 000 tonnes of that from over 12 countries.
In addition we supply many customers in the rest of Europe directly from our grower partner’s farms throughout the world.
My family have been involved in asparagus production for over 50 years.
My father had the good sense to limit his activities to breeding and selling plants, seeds and crowns to farmers and growers as well as domestic gardeners, mostly by mail order.
This did not seem exciting enough for me and so in 1964 I carried out some very basic market research to find out the demand for fresh green asparagus.
In the UK the major multiple retailers account for over 60% of the total sales of fresh produce.
Even in those days it was around 40% of the market so it was not difficult to pick up the phone and speak to the seven or eight buyers who controlled this high percentage of the total potential sales.
Without exception I was told that they would buy everything I could produce so long as the quality and prices were acceptable.
So in the spring of 1964 I purchased a farm of 100 acres in Suffolk in the East of England and started to plant up 25 acres with one-year-old crowns.
I chose the only varieties available to me at the time which were all open pollinated lines loosely based on Connover’s Colossal.
The soil on the farm was a light sandy soil common in that part of England known as the Breckland.
It’s the sort of soil that after you have finished drilling, and the wind gets up your neighbour