Focusing on the best

How can the food industry stay positive? By seeking and grasping the brilliant opportunities that are still coming its way. That is what the National Fruit Show is all about.

The work of the Marden Fruit Show Society has always been to promote access to knowledge and best practice relating to the growing, storing, packaging and marketing of top and soft fruit. The Society launched the first National Fruit Show exactly 90 years ago, when 35 top fruit growers founded the Society and held their first competitive event just up the road. The first display of fruit was shown to a Selfridges buyer who was brought down from London. Sally Flanagan (see p6) tells us what happens to it nowadays.

The National Fruit Show has over 90 years only had seven Presidents. In my first year as President I have been enormously impressed by the dedication, appetite and determination both of those starting out and those at the top of their careers, by the technical and scientific advances that will help to underpin the future, and by the efforts to educate young people and encourage them into the industry.

The educational role played by the society and the show in sharing knowledge and bridging gaps cannot be underestimated. Nothing can provide hope for the future more than the dedicated teams who are delivering this –making learning fun as well as informative!

This Show also demonstrates how technology is unlocking new options and directions. You will see not only the extraordinary, futuristic work being undertaken by NIAB at its new world class facility in East Malling, but also the work being undertaken by so many stallholders here.

Global warming, as King Charles said in his address to the French Senate just over a month ago, is our “greatest existential challenge”. Fruit trees are at risk from climate change and the diseases that thrive in warm weather, but planting trees is also a pathway to less greenhouse gas, less air pollution and more carbon capture.

As an agribusiness writer for many years, I am all too well aware of the economic, policy and social challenges that undermine food chain ambitions. You also know, and can capitalise on, the role that fruit growers can play in mitigation of desecration. Aged trees need to be replaced, in regenerative soil, to allow new varieties to be developed and new routes to market found. Displacing imports and providing fresh fruit to those who need it most, should be a priority. This show can help focus on innovation, on addressing the skills shortages, on profitable production, on feeding the needy and on bridging the gap between today’s growers and the generations to come.

It seems no time since the 2022 event, and the work that has gone into this year’s National Fruit Show is largely down to dedicated individuals. It is a reflection of what so much work, by so few, can do for so many, in so short a time. My predecessor, Teresa Wickham, has been a tireless advocate for the industry for many years, and I would personally like to thank her for her guidance and wisdom.

On that note, in a year of ferocious adversity, I’d like to pay tribute to the efforts of the show team and wider volunteers, to everyone who has taken the time and trouble to exhibit and compete, and to our valued key sponsors – BASF Agricultural Solutions, Hutchinsons, N P Seymour and Worldwide Fruit – and all other supporting sponsors.

The show is not only for growers by growers, but a showcase from which to take new ideas, developments, energy, education and, of course, the best fruit to the outside world. I was born and brought up on the Kent/ Sussex border, returning here in adult life over two decades ago, and I’m proud to be back in fruit-growing country.

This is a vital, progressive, thoroughly British industry producing some of the best, most delicious, nutritious, accessible and versatile raw produce. It is my privilege to support it.

Enjoy the show.