A Note On Fruit Boxes

This week, we felt it necessary to update you on our fruit boxes going forward. Those of you that have been with us a while will know that once we’re out of the summer soft fruit season, things begin to get a little sparse with Kent fruit.

Apples and pears continue to be a mainstay but outside of this we must import in fruit from other places to fill our fruit boxes. This obviously runs counter to a lot of the points we make around our veg.

Vegetables are plentiful year-round in Kent and unfortunately, now fruit is not (Something that we are constantly looking into, with recent additions such as apricots lowering the number of imports we have to make in a year). That said, we do everything we can to slow the environmental impact of what we are bringing in. This process is ever evolving, but we hope that you’ll understand that every decision when it comes to produce comes off the back of healthy debate within the team, as well as careful consideration of source and the effect that has on the environment.

We source all our imported fruit, of which there isn’t much, from David Catt & Sons. You may know them as one of our farms, but they also run a wholesale business. For oranges and satsumas, they source direct from a single farm, not wholesalers. Often, with bigger suppliers and sellers, there is a chain of wholesalers meaning the miles from farm to consumer is longer than it needs to be, with multiple stops before it is in your hands. With us, it is from the farm to Catts, to us (and we are under 8 miles from Catt’s!)

We, and Catt’s never use air freight which has up to 50x the emissions of trucking from farms. It is also common practice to use high spec, low emission vehicles and ensuring they have a full load to maximise each trip.

Therefore, we believe, that if you’re going to buy fruit from overseas then there still should be an effort made to make this the best decision available.