This week's guest is Angus Soft Fruits' breeding program director, Lucy Wilkins.

Angus Soft Fruits sells to the major multiples in UK, food service and wholesale and also exports fruit around the world to Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Angus is launching two revolutionary raspberry varieties: AVA™ Monet and AVA™ Dali - so named because they are, “works of art!” Lucy explains how they represent a "significant breakthrough in raspberry cultivation".

With UK growers squeezed between increased challenges for UK growers due to production and labour costs and ever-rising demands from supermarkets, the higher yield and high quality of the new breeds will "enable [Angus's growers] to sell the fruit at a higher price".

She discusses trends in customer tastes and their expectations and how Angus Soft Fruits breeding program is aiming to meet these for strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries.

Health, wellness and nutrition are big areas of interest as well as environmental impact of food and ethical farming practices, she says, which need to be balanced against demands for cheap, large, tasty fruits available all year round.

She discusses how the season, relative production performance for fruits has gone in 2024.

"We're also looking internationally to see how our varieties can perform in other climates. So we've got trials in Southern Europe and Morocco to sort of see how these varieties could perform in an import perspective, which would obviously allow for year-round production of our Ava berries, which is really exciting and it's a fantastic opportunity for growers around Europe as well as the UK", she says.

This year is Angus Soft Fruits 30th anniversary which will be celebrated in its annual conference held in November in Scotland which will feature talks from people from across the industry sharing their insights, updates and tech and what is driving innovation in the industry. "It's just a fantastic opportunity to get the whole team together, all of our growers and just celebrate 30 fantastic years."

Lucy discusses her route to her current role, why Tayside is so good for soft fruit growing and what Angus is doing on sustainability, coping with climate change and improving disease resistance and tolerance to help reduce pesticide use.

"Our Scottish growers have been working with AgriCalc to measure their carbon footprints on their farms since 2023 and they've already reduced their carbon emissions per kilogram of fruit by 28% which is just fantastic" she says, highlighting changes to lighting, and food waste among other measures towards net zero goals.

As the new Government continues to bed in, Lucy talks about her support for the six priority areas outlined by the British Berry Growers Association which include measures for seasonal labour, planning, exports and hopes for a 'grower charter'.

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