Strawberries signal first taste of summer

The fruit was stocked on shelves in 25 Morrisons stores around the South yesterday while Tesco said it will sell its first home-grown strawberries in 15 stores in Kent from today before rolling them out across the rest of the country.

Waitrose and Sainsbury's are due to sell their first crop of British strawberries over the next few days while Asda is expected to follow soon.

A spokesman for Tesco said that the sale of the fruit has been correlated to an increase of up to 15 per cent in sales of summer clothes at its stores.

Tesco strawberry buyer Ben Reed said: "Not only are we enjoying the first warm weather of the year this week but we've also now got the first British strawberries which means that summer is well and truly on the way.

"The arrival of the first home-grown strawberries is extremely significant – not only does it herald the start of British Summer Time but it is also the start of the UK growing season.

"Many shoppers think of the first home-grown strawberries as being bitter and hard but the ones we've got our hands on are delicious."

Many of the strawberries were grown by S&A Produce in Kent, the fruit's biggest glasshouse grower in the UK.

Over the last few years the supplier has been painstakingly monitoring the different climates and light levels for strawberries by replicating the natural summer conditions in their computerised glasshouses.

The British strawberry season can now last for up to 10 months – a whole four months longer than seven years ago.

Tesco sells around 27 per cent of the total British crop produced each year.