Fruitnet

Smaller strawberries could meet new consumer demand for ultra-convenient, healthy foods and mimic the kind of success that blueberries have had in recent years as a popular snack item. That’s according to Marion Regan, managing director of Hugh Lowe Farms, a major supplier of strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries based in Kent, south-east England. As she explains in the latest edition of Fruitnet’s conversation series Fruitbox, investment in better-eating and more productive varieties has underpinned the category’s commercial success over the past two decades, and helped it become the largest single product group in the UK fresh produce market in terms of sales. Crucially, she says, good-tasting fruit has been a key ingredient in the remarkable rise of fresh berries over the past couple of decades. “Berries are just a wonderful product,” she tells Chris White during a recent visit to the farm. “They tap into the zeitgeist of people who want healthy, convenient, highly snackable fruit. And I think we