A key part of the food industry is the New Covent Garden Market and Produce News was given an insight into how things are changing in the vegetable sector during a meeting with Scott Kocurek, Stand Manager for P & I Fruits. The company operates a number of stands within the Market, dealing with vegetables, fruit, exotics, salad and salad and vegetables.
Scott explains, “About 10 years ago, I was working for another company when I was offered, together with Paul Bishop and two other colleagues, the opportunity to join P & I. I worked under Paul for about eight years and then, as a director of the company, he moved over to run the salad and vegetable stand, leaving me to deal with the vegetable stand. Over the last ten years the Market has changed dramatically. At that time, the Growers Pavilion was full of Standholders. Today it is deserted. The market for produce has also changed and, today, only 20% of business is with the wholesale trade, the remaining 80% being direct sales to the catering trade.
“Before Christmas, the heavy falls of snow made it impossible for farmers to harvest their crops and so a lot of vegetables – particularly Brussels sprouts – were in very short supply. In the case of sprouts, large crops of sticks simply could not be harvested and in many cases, those that were harvested simply collapsed as “mush” once they had been unfrozen, another crop that has suffered has been cauliflower. In order to grow through the winter satisfactorily, it needs a minimum night-time temperature of 8°C and this has just not happened. As a result, farmers have been ploughing the plants back into the soil.”
According to Scott, crops of potatoes in Russia and Germany have been very badly hit by the bad weather. As a result, buyers from those countries have been coming to the UK and buying up large quantities of potatoes, leading to reduced availability for UK buyers and consequently increased prices. It has also meant that for English buyers such as Scott, they have had to go to the French markets to buy sufficient to meet the demands of their own customers.
Scott says, “I like to buy as much British produce as I can. Not only do I prefer to support our domestic growers but my customers like to be able to promote UK produce to their customers. Like virtually all of the standholders here in New Covent Garden, we rely heavily on the catering trade – some of my biggest customers are companies such as Hilliards Bros., C C Wells of Norfolk, Hollyards of Ewell, Surrey, I A Harris & Sons and Cheeseman Brothers of Guildford. The other thing that affects our trade is the selection of certain products by the TV chefs – the latest craze being purple sprouting broccoli. Once they select a particular vegetable, all of the restaurants have to have it! However, I do not like being beaten and I will always do my utmost to meet their demands.”
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