Shoppers will be able to judge for themselves when the predicted 11,000 UK-grown watermelons, the biggest crop ever produced and harvested in Britain, -exclusively hit Tesco shelves this coming week.
The fruit has been produced by the UK’s biggest watermelon grower, Oakley Farms which is based in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, under the careful guidance of melon growing expert James Cackett.
James, who is as a fruit technical manager for Tesco, has spent the last 15 years working with both seed houses and British growers on developing varieties that are perfect for the UK climate and soil.
James said: “This is an absolutely massive achievement by Oakley Farms as their previous production record was around 5,500 watermelons a few years ago so to double that inside two years is a fantastic achievement.
“The growing of watermelons in Britain is still a small and developing industry with only a handful of producers scattered all over the UK.
“When we first started selling them, in very small quantity, about 10 years back, Tesco customers were curious as to whether such an exotic looking fruit could ever be grown over here in the UK.
“But they're now very popular with shoppers firmly committed to supporting British growers and each year demand gets stronger, so it doesn’t take very long for the entire crop to sell out.”
Oakley Farms and Tesco have worked together on watermelon production for seven years and while the rainy July certainly slowed production somewhat, lesson learned from previous years has still resulted in a record-breaking year in terms of volume of production.
The farm is also the UK’s biggest producer of pumpkins and also grows courgettes and pumpkins and courgettes are both members of the cucurbit family, as are watermelons.
Oakley Farms manager Nick Molesworth added: “We began growing them after Tesco approached us and offered to work with us on the project and we felt that it made good sense as the crop would fit in perfectly between production of courgettes in late spring and pumpkins in the early autumn months.
“We've tried several different methods of growing the watermelons and are now getting more fruit per plant so the hard work is beginning to pay off for us.
“However, I have to say that they're not that easy to grow and the British climate can also be a bit of a challenge, but we’re very pleased with this year’s crop. We believe that growing watermelons is a natural evolution for our business.”
The water melons are set to go on sale in x Tesco stores and will cost £3.49 each for the standard size and £2.50 for the mini size.