Meet Artur - the man who makes sure our strawberries taste great

We’ve been working hard to make sure we’ve got the tastiest, freshest strawberries in store in time for Wimbledon – and the quality is down to our chief strawberry taster Artur Grochala.

Artur samples more than 100 different varieties of strawberries every week in his role as fruit technical manager – checking them for taste and appearance. He says it’s important the strawberries are fully ripened before being picked – and then we aim to get them from field to store in less than 24 hours.

They’re picked in the morning, packed in the afternoon, in our depots by evening and on the shelves early the next morning.

Artur, who was interviewed for the Mail this week, says he loves strawberries. “I’m lucky I get to eat them for a living, but even when I’m not at work I’m eating strawberries. Whenever I go on holiday I like to sample the local strawberries.”

He says: "The smaller the strawberry the sweeter it is, so we try to include a mixture of sizes in each pallet as some customers prefer larger strawberries and others smaller.

“To me the perfect strawberry is a medium-size berry with fresh-looking leaves and light to bright red in colour.”

Our strawberries are sourced from local suppliers in Cornwall, Kent, Worcester, Hereford, East Anglia, Midlands, Yorkshire and Scotland.

And this year we’ve introduced a new variety into our range – the “Jubilee” strawberry which is fit for a queen!

Try them with our Extra Special double cream – and a glass of our award-winning Extra Special Champagne for a special treat.