Where have all the exotic fruits gone?

It’s all to do with cost wherever they can make margins from us, we are paying more for less. When it becomes to expensive supply dependent foreign foods they will find an alternative. I just bought some supermarket own brand tangerines which taste like grapefruit, the standard bagged apples change week to week. It’s really inconsistent and standards of quality are dropoung.

another example I can give is things like salmon steaks where they used to give a generously sized pack of two, this is now one of those steaks cut in two. So pack sizes are shrinking as well as the quality of what’s in them. It’s such a gradual process the only people who notice are over age 44 

I wouldn't know as I'm veggie and never have been a fan of lamb, it upsets my tummy, no matter how it's cooked.

I don't think I've ever seen a jackfruit thats not in a tin and even ones in tins have got expensive and harder to get hold of.

I don’t remember New Zealand cheddar (I was born in the 1960s), but I do remember Canadian cheddar which is still available, although it doesn’t taste as good as I remember it used to.

There used to be a delicatessen near our home which stocked different types of cheddar and other cheeses, cold meats, pates, jars and tins of jams, chutneys, lesser known vegetables etc, I miss not having shops like that.

We actually have fairly good soil on much of the island, although some of it is thin and rocky and only really good for pasture.

You're right about salinity although it depends on which part of the island your are, we used to be the bread basket of North Wales and there did used to be much more grown here. Lots of land got turned into sheep pasture, I know the Scots like to think the Clearances only happened to them, but they happened here too and in England. I think in recent years it's more likely to be short summer seasons that hamper growing some crops

Iain said:

I just had a recallection of that very lesson in geography from school

As an aside, I wish we'd had a geography teacher like that! I don't know how mine managed to make the subject so boring and irrelevant to real life. The food chain would have been so much more interesting and relevant. 

TheCatWoman said:

We only seem to grow potatoes and cabbages on the island, I don't know why?

It is likely that the poor quality soil only allows these sort of hardy crops to grow economically. The cause of the poor soil is a mix of nutrient leaching through high rainfall and high salinity through wind blown sea spray.

Damn, I just had a recallection of that very lesson in geography from school 45 years ago...

ArchaeC said:

most of my fresh veg comes from a local farm shop.

Oh, I forgot about farm shops. There's one near the Tesco I use on Mondays. Thanks for that.

ArchaeC said:

Food standards have declined!

Yes, they have. I find most fruit and veg doesn't seem to taste very much. When I can afford it, I buy organic. In the 50's [I sound like my mother!] we had tasty New Zealand cheddar - the only cheddar I find tasty is expensive Vintage Cathedral.

I saw an enormous jackfruit in a Vietnamese grocery last week, in Manchester.

TheCatWoman said:

We only seem to grow potatoes and cabbages on the island

We have lots of potatoes and cabbages here, possibly they make up the majority of our vegetable crops, but we also have lots of carrots,turnips, sprouts and so on. 

Welsh lamb is famously good. I know how it tastes depends on lots of factors, but it always has great flavour and if cooked well, really tender.

We do have a couple of farm shops at the other end of the island, but prices are really high and the stock limited. We only seem to grow potatoes and cabbages on the island, I don't know why? There's a lot of beef and lamb too. 

TheCatWoman said:

I wonder if another reason why so much produce has become unavaible or more expensive is because of wild fires destroying crops?

Yes, I would think that is likely, and farmers are diversifying due to other climate change challenges such as flooding.

Long may local independent fresh food suppliers continue! It’s not practical for me to source all my fresh foods from local independent suppliers because I would be running all over the place. I get lamb occasionally from a local butcher and most of my fresh veg comes from a local farm shop. The quality and flavour is superior.

We're lucky to have an excellent butchers down the road for the rare occasion I need meat, they have a board where the names of the farms the meat came from are posted, so it's all local, apart from the pork and poultry, but those farms are named too.

I wonder if another reason why so much produce has become unavaible or more expensive is because of wild fires destroying crops?

I read somewhere that it is not economically viable to stock some foreign produce due to political instability, e.g., war, increased transportation costs (shipping routes disrupted) and tariffs.

I like sweet potatoes, but some of them are from South America and they are transported into the US and have been treated with something that used to be illegal in the UK because it was considered harmful, before Brexit.

M&S has stopped listing the country of origin on much of its pre packed fresh foods such as meat, unless it is from Ireland. Sometimes it will say packed in the UK, which means nothing—it could have come from deepest Peru and been twice round the world. Much ‘fresh’ meat and poultry has been frozen and thawed (visible in the smallest writing on the back of the pack). Food standards have declined! I can source most of my fresh food from Ireland, north and south, but it is time consuming.

I believe Morrisons, along with the Coop, have their own farms, but I think this is more for meat than fruit.

I think the acreage of orchards in the UK continues to fall so it just be that certain chains have deals with growers or pay better prices.

Other imported products exotic products will depend on supply chain and harvests, so no idea. Certain products will just be dropped if they don't sell enough. You might have to consider online shopping.

Fruit availability seems to vary inexplicably from supermarket to supermarket. For the past several months we have been unable to get Bramley apples from our local Tesco and Sainsbury's. However, Morrisons seem to have no difficulty in sourcing them.

I'm not a fan of tropical fruits, but I've noticed the lack of choice recently, I thought it was just here with us being at the end of the line, literally, ext stop from here is Dublin.

If you've a waitrose near you they may have some, or what about ocado? They don't deliver here unfortunately, or are there any Asian supermarkets you could explore?

It absolutley disgusts me that in a country that produces so many varieties of apples and this year has one of the best harvests for years, that it's so hard to get British grown fruit. It's actually one of the reasons I prefer Lidl and Aldi they have more British apples that British supermarkets. Although not many, again you need a market to get a range of more that two or at most three.

If you go to Middle Eastern or Chinese supermarkets, you'll find kumquats and dragon fruits. There isn't really a demand in mainstream British supermarkets, like Tescos or Sainsbury's.

We still have loads of the exotic fruits you mention on sale here in Brazil at normal prices and I know we supply a load of fruit to the UK so I suspect it isn't a supply side issue. 

It could be some trade issue between the countries or just the supermarkets are not able to make the profit they want so they are dropping the products.

Have a look in your local markets where they have a fruit and veg stall (if you are in a bigger town or city) as they should be there.