IN FRUIT
We are now entering our full winter season for fruit. Citrus of course plays a major role in this and New Season Aussie navel oranges lead the charge here. The always look a bit pale compared to the imported fruit we have just finished, but appearances are deceptive and I am confident that our customers will be pleasantly surprised with the delightful fresh flavour of our new season Australian fruit. Of course mandarins also play a huge part in this category and they are now at their absolute best. Surprisingly this is also the peak time of the year for papaya, it is eating superbly, somehow I feel it should be at its best in summer but this is absolutely not the case. Shepard avocados, although a bit fragile continue to offer the best taste experience in this fruit, stick with this green skin variety for at least the next week. Packham pears are good, this early fruit seems a bit more mature than in recent years. We are seeing the first of the Queensland strawberries in store this week and in a fortnight or so these will be the main fruit. Strawberries love warm days and cool to cold nights then the flavour is superb. Grapes and apples round off our late Autumn fruit offer.
IN VEGETABLE
Milder weather is bringing excellent supplies of most vegetables both locally and from interstate as well. As a result, a lot of prices are starting to ease and the quality of most lines is excellent. Best of the local product is English spinach followed by beetroot, both in bunches and loose. Some of our traditional winter lines are arriving in larger quantities and Brussels sprouts is the best of these, followed closely by parsnips which had been nearly unprocurable of late. Other lines easing in price include cabbage, beans, celery, zucchini, capsicums and all types of cucumbers. The old season pumpkin crops have now had a frost on them which seems to make them sweeter to eat, however they also then don’t keep quite as well. For a bargain buy I would not go past our imperfect Black zucchinis which are exactly half the price of the premium product and of course are exactly the same to eat.
