Apple farmers struggling amid rising costs, warn growers

Apple farmers are going out of business because they are not getting a fair price during the cost-of-living crisis, states a recent report citing a leading farming expert.

Ali Capper, former NFU horticulture board chair, has said it was clear growers were not getting the returns to cover increased costs with some had had to stop using their orchards.

Capper told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme growers were all losing money and they are having to take out their orchards.

“They can’t afford to replant them – that means that there won’t be the same quantity of British fruit coming forward into the future and some of the businesses are actually going under, going bust and this is not sustainable,” she said.

“We’ve got the perfect climate to produce apples in this country. It is mad that we would rather import them than pay a fair price to British growers.

“I think there is something fundamentally wrong – it is not fair that the shopper is being charged 27, 25 per cent, 46 per cent more for apples and yet that increase in price is not coming back down to the growers,” she said, adding that while production costs had risen about 23 per cent, she said the amount they received was only up an average of 0.8 per cent.

The report quoted British Retail Consortium saying that retailers were also facing additional costs and were working hard to limit price increases for consumers during a cost-of-living crisis when many people were struggling to afford essentials.

UK’s apple-growing sector is struggling with a number of issues, including a shortage of workers – made worse since the UK’s exit from the European Union – as well as high energy costs, and low returns from the supermarkets that buy their produce.

Higher energy bills are also playing havoc on this industry as apples need to be kept at a certain temperature to maintain freshness.

It comes as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is soon set to hold a food summit with industry bosses over rising food prices.