MANCHESTER, England, 2016-Aug-24 — /EPR Retail News/ — The humble fresh garden pea has seen the green shoots of growth as sales have trebled, according to new figures from the Co-op. The British fresh pea season lasts between May and September with 2016 witnessing a bumper crop because of the warm, wet weather the UK has been experiencing.
Adele Balmforth, Commercial Manager at Co-op says;
“We are having a really amazing season on British vegetables, especially fresh peas with sales trebling on last summer. They are particularly sweet and juicy this year which means they can be eaten raw or quickly cooked, whilst the task of shelling them is good fun for kids and gets them involved, even if a few do end up on the floor rather than in the bowl”.
Co-op says their British peas are mainly grown in Somerset which has a good growing climate and takes advantage of the Somerset Vale that gives a range of soil types and rolling hills all around it to ‘catch’ the weather.
The bumper crop is providing a full sweet juicy flavour to the peas this year and is cited as the reason for the sales uplift. The crop is hand-picked at the optimum time to give it its maximum flavour and early season peas will be picked from the fields, packed and in to stores in just 36 hours.
The green pea is widely recognized as one of the first food crops to be cultivated by humans, originating back thousands of years ago to the field pea native to the Middle East yet it is still such a popular vegetable with adults and children alike. Peas can often be the only green vegetable a child will eat, and while frozen peas have always been a family favourite, the fun of podding peas and getting the kids involved in shelling them has meant British fresh peas have seen their most popular sales period at the Co-op to date.
For further information:
Victoria Simons
Co-op Press Office
victoria.simons@co-operative.coop
Source: Coop