‘Harper Farming’ was awarded the coveted title of ‘Vegetable Grower of the Year’ at the Horticulture Week Grower of the Year awards held at the Lancaster Hotel, London on the 20th March.

Farming 750 acres in Worcestershire, Harper Farming grow and pack a range of summer vegetables including runner beans, salad onions, pak choi and squashes. Harper Farming’s unique joint venture with ASDA’s supplier MWW (Minor Weir and Willis) has enabled them to invest strategically in state of the art farming and packing techniques to ensure that consumers receive high quality British produce in the shortest possible time after harvest.

The photograph shows John Harper (MD of Harper Farming) and Simon Barnett (UK growing manager for MWW) receiving the award from sponsors, New Spitalfield Market and BBC Radio 4 personality Fred Macaulay.

Chris Jones has been closely monitoring the quality of sprout material with all suppliers including Lincolnshire Field Products, to ensure the quality is as good as possible. Despite challenging weather conditions, the quality is strong.

Chris Jones visited M H Poskitt at Goole, East Yorkshire, on a cold winters morning to capture footage of the processes behind the supply of carrots and parsnips, two staple Christmas vegetables, and to review quality of product destined for ASDA stores over Christmas. The cold conditions helped the harvest of carrots and parsnips and the quality of each were very strong. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and I hope you enjoy our carrots and parsnips!

Chris Jones, Asda Produce Technical manager, visited Fenmarc last week to review washed up samples of potato consignments destined for ASDA customers over the Christmas period and early 2013. The quality of material was strong.

Chris Jones and Richard Hatherly have been out to Kenya with legume suppliers Minor Weir and Willis and Barfoots. Growers Everest, EAGA and Serengeti Fresh were visited, and crops of green beans, garden peas, chillies, babycorn, sugar snap, mangetout, tenderstem broccoli and baby courgettes were reviewed. All stages of the supply chain were reviewed from the field to Nairobi airport.