IN FRUIT
The Northern Territory mangoes are that little bit better again this week and with a long weekend coming up will sell well and hold their price still. In berries, strawberries as predicted are dearer being between crops and raspberries are quite difficult to buy. Blueberries remain as the staple of the berry market. Sweet to eat, great quality and attractively priced they are fantastic value. The price difference between our standard and premium blueberries is so little that for me the premiums are the best buy. Papaya, sweet topless pines and kiwi gold are also right at their best. For apples the true pink ladies from Western Australia are number one. Unfortunately floods down south where our avocados should be now coming from have affected the normally excellent quality from those areas. This coupled with the drying up of northern NSW fruit means the best avocadoes this week are from New Zealand. It is a year since we have used imported avos but we think it is best for our customers. Hopefully we will be back to all Australian fruit soon, weather permitting. Local stone fruit is just around the corner and we have had enough rain in all growing areas to predict a great start to the summer stone fruit season.
IN VEGETABLE
As I said in my Pick of the Week column the main story this week is the glut of superb quality mushrooms. As mentioned there I have not seen these numbers ever before, enjoy it while it lasts. The great run of asparagus also continues at very low prices and again great quality. We ate a stir fry last night with three fantastic new season spring vegies, young tender broad beans, asparagus and English spinach. All three are at their best and won’t be as good when the hot weather commences. This long weekend sees some warmer weather predicted and it looks like a great weekend for bargains galore in the salad area with iceberg lettuce very well priced and most tomatoes starting to ease, truss particularly far cheaper than they have been. Telegraph cucumbers have fallen in price dramatically. Choice quality glasshouse eggplant has also halved in price, and most other vegetables are no dearer or very much cheaper than a week ago. School holidays always slow trade down so I would expect many prices to fall well into next week.
