As we touched on last week, our first week of selling the delicious wares from Picklebits went really well. Inside our first delivery there was a treasure trove of goodies for us to all sample at base and our Alph whipped up some tasty burgers and salads loaded with tasty pickles…a lovely treat to enjoy on one of our sunniest mornings yet this year. We sent another pallet down to these guys loaded with carrots, beets and cucs just yesterday so the flow of pickles should be a steady one. We really love cyclical relationships with suppliers like this 😊❤️

In another full-circle moment, we’re really pleased to welcome young Dmytro or ‘Deem‘ to the ON team – it’s very rare for folk to be allowed more than a one syllable name at our gaff! 😅

Our Sean first met Deem’s brother, Serge approximately 10 years ago whilst visiting Kyiv, and after Serge and his partner Polina spent time living with Sean and Cathryn (after Russia invaded Ukraine), Deem has now joined Organic North to start his own chapter here in the UK. There’s a brilliant documentary film about Serge and Pol, made by a super-talented pal of ours called Tom, who as well as being a fab film maker, also doubles up to produce by hand, our very own work t-shirts too! Here’s a link to the documentary – well worth a watch we reckon 🤭

Good afternoon everyone!

We’re extremely busy at ONHQ just now working on lots of projects to both improve what we do and to try and help better our sector more generally. I’ll be sure to update you guys with the breakthroughs on every front as and when they occur but to whet your appetites, expect to see and learn of a range of exciting improvements by the end of summer.

One good piece of news from last week is that as a founder member of the UK Fruit & Veg Coalition, we’re now officially engaged in a 6 month consultation period with Defra, helping design the government’s new Horticulture Sector Growth Plan. We are going to be leading on the agroecological stream of this work and will be looking to represent the interests of our many treasured farmers and growers and help design policies that will benefit our sector more broadly.

We’ve also been in talks with Defra regarding a separate workstream of ours that is getting organic veg into the state schools of Bury. Partly on the back of the good work we’ve already began doing with the local authority catering team in Bury, the borough has been recognised by Defra and awarded £155,000 if memory serves me right to bolster their efforts and kick on with their good work. Amongst other things, being able to invest in what we’ve been setting up, this could have the effect that between us, we are going to be able to make sure that all of the fruit and veg that the kids in Bury eat is certified organic forthwith. How BLOODY AMAZING would that be!? If we can pull this off then Defra would be extremely interested to learn how we’ve done it and be keen to see what we’ve achieved replicated around the UK as much as possible. We’re dead excited about this.

I’ll hand over to our Ell now to give you the regular weekly highlights of the list but before I do…

• Camposeven have told us that nectarines could be starting as soon as next week and peaches the week after that.

• Haciendas should also start in two weeks with cherries.

• And this week, we’ve our first UK toms on the list from the Isle of Wight and we’re also listing some delicious new Palestinian dates too : )

The fruit and veg headlines: 

• Starting in the UK, excitingly we see the very first tomatoes coming in from Isle of Wight – we only have cherry vine tomatoes both loose and in punnets but we’re happy to see The Tomato Stall return.

• Elsewhere, we also have the first of the UK rhubarb coming in from Bedlam, some green asparagus and french breakfast radish from Fosketts as well as a range of bagged herbs from Strawberry Fields including lovage, oregano, sage and thyme.

• Staying in the UK, Royal Oak has some red java spuds while Mahollam adds some Cara spuds. Flourish also add a few more lines this week including watercolour Batavia lettuce, prickly pierre lettuce and some more colours in their ranunculus bouquets.

• From our market gardens, Trinity has some sweet cicely, aisla craig tomato plants and jani tomato plants.

• From Spain, Biovergel has some semi dried yellow onions, Bioandalusisome mini watermelons and Campo some pointy red peppers, sweet bite peppers and the interesting Zucchiolo which is a cross between a courgette and a cucumber. It’s crispy and versatile and can be eaten both raw and cooked.

• From Holland, Zann has romanesco cauliflowers, marmande tomatoes, red delicious apples and Fairtrasa has abate pears.

• From France, our top picks from Dynamis are the padron peppers, black ribbed tomatoes, mixed colour cherry tomatoes, mini san marzano tomatoes, Melrose apples, and round strawberries. Elsewhere, Uni-Vert has some black krim and coeur de beouf tomatoes.

• To line your pantry’s, we have some new types of olives on from Cal Valls this week, you guys really love their stuff so we’re excited to get more in. We’re also getting a fresh delivery of Ekolo juice stocking up on apple & mango, blueberry, orange and orange, carrot & lemon juice.

• Abbey Leys are running a special offer this week on their medium eggs, these will be priced at £3.22 a dozen.

• Last but not least, Rift Valley has some premium Palestinian dates on this week. What makes them premium, you ask? Well these are larger and softer than usual with less loose skin meaning they’re sweet, plump and oh so delicious.

That’s all from us this week, hope you’ve all some time to enjoy the sun we’re gonna be getting.

Sean, Cathryn, Mads, Ell, Alph and Team ON x

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