Debbie Hearn’s vision for British culinary fruit

I’d like to see:

Fresh, seasonal fruit readily available to all.

People foraging in a sustainable way for hedgerow fruits.

Culinary fruit sold in high season without having been picked unripe and ripened artificially.

Gardeners growing culinary fruits in imaginative ways.

Communities celebrating seasonal fruits, particularly ones with local significance.

Home cooks maintaining and moving on our traditions of cooking fruits; passing on skills and recipes to new generations.

Everyone getting a taste for healthy food: Parents introducing their children to new tastes and textures and passing on a love of seasonal fruits.

Farmers developing niche markets for unusual culinary fruits that thrive in their locality.

Ethnic communities enjoying British culinary fruits in a shared food culture.

Schools reinforcing values of home fruit cookery and compensating for lacks in the home.

Fruit breeders drawing upon traditional culinary fruits: we need a growing tradition of conventional fruit breeding, not an ailing one.

Scientists and technologists working on samples of culinary fruit and on projects that allow our heritage culinary fruits to be maintained in a commercially-viable way, where possible.

Defra and other interested bodies working together to record British fruit harvests, as found in commercial orchards, gardens and hedgerows, and using this knowledge to inform future crops. This knowledge to be used to make fresh fruit available to all, conserve rare varieties where they thrive and fruit well, and maintain local populations of naturally-variable fruits (e.g. myrobalans and bullaces).

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