To say that the majority of UK fruit and veg is awful in comparison to other countries?

[MissHoneyPenny]

Why is it so expensive and (mostly) of poor quality when compared to places like Spain and France? I understand climate obviously plays into this but even things that can be grown well here like carrots and potatoes seem poor quality unless you pay top price at a farmers market or organic store.

I shop at a range of supermarkets from Aldi to M&S and none seem to be particularly great.

@BarneyRonson Divine. Let’s put turnips back in first place.*

*this post is sponsored by Big Turnip.

Reminds self I must look into buying a veg box.

Get an allotment

We get very good root veg, brassicas, cucumber, lettuce, radishes, strawberries and asparagus in season,,very good conference pears but yeah, plums, peaches, nectarines and apples used to be so much better when I was a kid. Most supermarket offerings in summer fruit are a disgrace.

We got some from the local market at the weekend and they are so much better than the supermarket ones. Could smell them though the bag! Amazing.

We also have a pick your own down the road, just need to go!

We could eat seasonally but the varieties we grow in this country within season are not good enough. The cucumbers we grow are for thin skins and long thin cucumbers, hence tasteless. Abroad you get the little fat stout ones which are nobbly with thick skin on that generally we choose to take off. The flavour is incomparable.

Same with tomatoes, go anywhere in Italy and Spain and you'll see a huge variety of different tomatoes for different uses and different flavours. We're lucky here if a supermarket does a few 'posh' cherry ones, bog standard cherry ones, bog standard salad tomatoes and beefsteak which are nothting like the beefsteak abroad. They're all full of water and seeds, no flesh to them whatsoever.

I could go on about everything else too and bore everyone to death, I will stop with these two examples.

Yes British veg are generally tasteless and forced in production. The imported stock has sat for a while in container ships

I definitely will! 🤣

A year?! I never knew that! 😮

Am on a waiting list. Where I live the average wait time is close to six years.

Greengrocers? I couldn't tell you where the nearest one is. Rarer than butchers! The local one shut down over 15 years ago- I think that unit's the blooming betting shop now.

I don't attempt to buy fresh soft fruit unless it's in season, but I've even given up on "easy peelers" as most I've bought this spring have gone off within a week of buying them (from a few different supermarkets)

There did seem to be a gear change when Brexit kicked in and it hasn't really improved since.

Bloody annoying when trying to eat healthily with a range of fresh veg/ fruit.

It’s not all bad. British apples (the traditional varieties rather than Gala, Braeburn etc) are the best in the world. As are our Victoria plums. And our Jersey Rooyal potatoes. The British asparagus I bought from Sainsbury’s last weekend was superb.

When it comes to imported produce, however, we get the rubbish that the French, Spanish & Italians don’t want. Why? Because we aren’t prepared to pay for the good stuff, so they keep it for themselves.

That was my point - it's a lot more complicated than 'the UK consumer is too cheap to pay for good food'.

Depends on what you buy and where you buy.

The taste of vegetables and fruit has a lot to do with the substrate in which it is grown. Good soil = good taste. Very simple equation. It also depends on how it's grown, whether it is stored, or if it's in season.

If you like fruit and veg that is not in season, then it is likely to be imported, and as PP have stated therefore old and lost flavour and nutrients, or grown underglass in controlled enviroments, or hydroponically. Even if it's grown here or in the big market gardens on the continent it could be hydroponically grown so no flavour from the soil, or has a lot of water to plump it up quickly, again less flavour from soils.

Some root veg and tuber veg are stored and we are coming to the end of last years produce now, we used to call them Oss Carrots and Pig Potatoes because that's what they were good for, again not in season.

If you buy inseason produce you get a better shot of it being tasty, fresh and fairly local.

Grow it yourself and it's super fresh and tastes entirely different.

In two generations we've gone away from the individuals who cared about the product, sourced locally or from local wholesale markets straight off the ships. Now we have food from supermarkets who are more interested in getting in very uniform, super clean, and plump looking vegetables that fit neatly in boxes that fit neatly in trucks to maximise profit. If it's packaged it's processed quickly but still not fresh when you get it.

Meanwhile perfectly decent local veg gets ploughed back into the soil because the wholesale buyers either don't want to sell because it looks a bit different or to keep prices high for their shoppers by reducing the amount of available produce.

That's why it's worth going to the small independants and markets and paying more for your food if taste is important to you.

Live in Canada and yes the vegetables and fruit are great, especially local stuff : apples, potatoes, carrots, strawberrirs, cantaloupe etc

In france recently and the fruit and veg from Carrefour was mostly shit unless you bought from the "exceptional quality" section which was pretty expensive. Was kinda lidl like, looked good, turned instantly when you bought it.

I sell fruit and veg, we've maintained the quality of what we've sold over the years but we're currently selling avocados for 2.39 each, albeit very nice ones, which a few years ago we were selling for 1.29 at a higher profit. There's still good and reasonably priced fruit and veg in the uk but you don't find it in normal supermarkets and IME you never have, you find it in grocers and in small busy shops that get daily deliveries from market, like our shop

I think a lot of our fruit comes from Spain!
No but I do definitely choose certain kinds of tomatoes as much tastier than others. Melons are very hit or miss. If you think it’s expensive here try America! I was shocked at the prices of veg there.
I think stuff tastes better sitting in the sun on holiday anyway…

Markets in Northern France sell wonderful fruit and veg. I think the problem is most is grown under glass or worse, plastic tunnels. I haven't eaten a beautiful, fragrant strawberry in years, something England was famous for.

If you want to avoid watery carrots that have a strange soapy taste when eaten raw, then they have to be organic. It is the one vegetable where if organic, really tastes different.

This is just such a juvenile response 🙄

Jersey Royals don't taste anything like they used to, and the season for them would be over in a couple of weeks, now it goes on for ever.
I read once that since they became so popular, there is not enough seaweed available to grow them in. Hence the lack of unique flavour.

I've always assumed it's because it spends ages in transit.

Where in Canada are you ? I have visited twice and been incredibly disappointed by the food. ( Ontario and Ottawa) maybe better on the West Coast.

Oranges are a winter fruit.

No oranges in Florida probably means they restrict imports from other countries when their season is over

We lived in a non European Mediterranean country for a few years and the fruit and veg was insanely good. It's a country that exports a lot to Europe but when veg are picked for the local market it's when they are ripe, not beforehand.

However, you could only get what was in season- so in April you can buy strawberries by the roadside in 5kg quantities but it all has to be eaten or processed the same day. And you pretty much just have 2 or 3 fruits in season at any one time.

Ditto vegetables, you need to come up with 100 different ways to cook fennel. Potatoes not always available etc.

People don't want to shop like that in the UK. I liked it, took out a lot of the noise around food shopping. And the peaches were amazing, the kids won't eat them in the UK. We have an allotment- even things like rocket taste better if you grow yourself and are very easy to do.