Market Report in association with Wild Harvest 25 March 2013

In association with

OUR SEASONAL UPDATE GOES LIVE – CLICK HERE TO WATCH OUR RECENT UPDATES Good afternoon Chef, As we are about to break for Easter, here’s what's moving through our chillers… Wild Mushrooms The quality from Portugal & Spain is now intolerable. We make the switch to the USA from Monday. This allows me to buy some interesting US produce to fill up the “skid” as the air freight specialists sometimes call a sort of pallet.

Morels - Magnificent from Turkey.
Yellow legged chanterelle -Average from America.
Trompette - Excellent from America.
Pied De Mouton - Average from America.
Cep - Sporadic From South Africa.

We take a bow from the girolle game. They are still growing in Europe, but are not fit for consumption if you ask me. The next shot at quality will be Bulgaria at the beginning of May. Until then we will eschew this SKU. We have beautiful frozen specimens for those who like to laugh in the face of seasonality. Fruits We need more sun. I can however announce the return of the mighty Meyer Lemon however from Monday. Like a great deal of great things (including our Finance Manager) this cross between a mandarin and lemon originated in China. A welcome sought after new flavour imported from the US on our wild mushroom pallets. I also have a case of frozen huckleberries on my shipment hitting Heathrow on Sunday morning. I expect to see the patented “World’s smallest tomato” or tomberry coming from Holland next week. Our fruit offering is way more extensive than this, but I’m not about to fill space and time with talk of baby bananas and dragon fruit. Vegetables Much more to wax lyrical about here. A bag of fiddle head ferns from the US to check how they are travelling. As much lovely English green asparagus as we can. We need temperatures of around 11 degrees for a fortnight to provide a dependable flow. Excellent Wye Valley forced rhubarb. Just in time to plug the gap left by Yorkshire. CLICK HERE TO WATCH PAOLA PRESENT OUR WYE VALLEY UPDATE. Potent Bay Laurel from the West Coast of America. One of my favorites this. It Looks like a bay leaf (which often disappoint my palate) but has an intense liquorice/eucalyptus aroma. Great for infusions and jellies. The first of the great looking and versatile wet or new season garlic from Egypt. CLICK HERE TO WATCH PAOLA PRESENT OUR WET GARLIC UPDATE. We will move to French product as soon as the climate allows. We have leapt into the Jersey Royal season at the hothouse end. CLICK HERE TO WATCH CAMERON PRESENT OUR JERSEY ROYAL UPDATE. Prices will plummet when the crop hits the great outdoors. Things are looking up in general. French white asparagus is excellent and foraged greens are more varied with the likes of sea beet making a welcome return. Truffles The winter truffle season is over at virtually the identical time as last year. If 2012 is anything to go by we must wait until April the 17^th before summer truffles have any nose or marbling. The same sort of time as the arrival of pheasant eggs. Summer truffles are on offer now, but Wild Harvest won’t sell them until they are ready. Spring whites cling on for another week or so. Take advantage of frozen Chinese truffles and our extensive range of preserved truffle products to bridge that troublesome tuber gap. Laser Cut Eggs Our purchasing assistant’s baby - a fun and elegant serving vessel as pictured above. We will be getting some into the warehouse without Humpty Dumpty style breakages next week in time for Easter, and that’s no yolk. Have a warm weekend.

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