Market Report Sponsorsed by Oakleaf European Newsletter #17

Fruit and Mushroom with Robin

The products we are really enjoying now are Top Fruit and citrus. Clementines are eating extremely well and we can also source great looking fruit with dark green waxed leaves that make a stunning display. Remember though that the fruit is often less coloured as heat/cold treatments that produce the deep orange can not be applied when the leaves are attached. The Top Fruit section now includes Pink Kiss - a great replacement for Pink Lady - and apples such as Golden Rosée and Granny Smith are both well coloured and eating well. Abate pear are very pleasant to eat and the Comice is proving to be popular for prepared dishes. Osteen mangoes are finishing but we can offer nice large Keitt which has little fibre and is a good plump mango. Other good "˜exotics' include Quince, which is finishing in France but being replaced by Turkish and Spanish fruit. Orange fleshed melons from Morocco are good, Florida grapefruit are beginning and now our attention is turning to this year's dried nuts and in the growing range of fresh and dried dates.

Vegetable and Salad with Matthieu

Our salad supply has now definitely moved to the South of France in the region of Provence for the rest of winter, where the weather conditions are more favourable except in exceptional circumstances. This is the reason why we are using two different growers who are not in the same area just in case one of them is caught by frost or other nasties. We have known these growers since the very beginning of Oakleaf and they share the same vision of quality. Brittany Artichokes mainly CASTEL will come to an end soon and their prices are rising more and more each day while at the same time it seems to be hard for us to find a decent quality. Spanish production will start in the weeks coming. On a positive; baby violet artichokes are still good quality. Moroccan beans are getting better in quality and prices will slowly come down. Meanwhile the Coco Paimpol campaign should come to an end very soon - not too late to get a bit of stock in! Baby leaf from Fontainebleau will remain on our lists for two more weeks until the end of the campaign of our grower. After that, we will be using our growers on the French Riviera for our Mesclun Nicois and Japonais. Be aware as some of the products are exclusively grown in Fontainebleau such as Salsola or baby watercress and they will stop in two weeks. The roots section is giving us a lot of satisfaction this year, quality is perfect and prices are reasonable. One of our favoured ones is shown below - Boulettes de Bussy or Green Turnip.

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