Havering Friends of the Earth

Choose British Apples

by Rosina Purnell; first published 17-Oct-2025

Crunch! What a delight to bite into a flavourful, juicy apple. And it's in the autumn when British apples hit their peak, enriching our 5 a day fruit and vegetable targets and encouraging us to make delicious pies or crumbles.

British apples are the best in the world because they ripen more slowly than others which are grown in continental and sub-tropical climates.

But there's a problem. Buying British apples here in Havering and elsewhere in Greater London resembles a search for the Holy Grail. If you go to a local supermarket, British apples can take ages to locate as they're usually placed on the lowest shelf and often look as if they have seen better days, if they are there at all.

Our reliance on imported apples has increased and now we're presented with produce from New Zealand and South Africa which has travelled from right across the other side of the world in huge refrigerated units. In this country there are orchards full of tasty apples on our doorstep.

What can better the British Cox, Bramley, Braeburn or Gala apple? Egremont Russets are delicious to sample in the autumn.

Relying on foreign produce is not a clever option. Weather volatility caused by climate change is affecting the countries we import from and access to reliable water supplies is getting harder for them to maintain.

Growers' organisations want British apples to be 60% of all those sold by 2030 in this country. They want British apples celebrated and promoted.

A serious consideration is the way we eat today in our modern world. We have lost the habit of consuming seasonal food and expect strawberries in December and blueberries in February.

I am not suggesting that we go back to my younger days when the only vegetables on your plate were carrots, greens or ugh! cabbage. The only fruit in winter was apples, oranges and possibly bananas. There was very little choice and although things have improved since then, I think we now have too much to choose from. We have lost the vibrancy of eating locally produced food in season.

The British apple is a valued fruit which we should be pressurising our supermarkets and shops to proudly stock. Hopefully, Havering's apple eaters can go for the crunch of the British variety and help us be more considerate to the planet at the same time.