Call for more cash to promote blackcurrant growers

As SCIENTISTS and plant breeders attempt to unravel the genetic make-up of blackcurrants to find out just what gives them the title of a “healthy super fruit” a leading grower yesterday expressed his concerns that too much money was being spent on science and too little on promoting and marketing the fruit.

Anthony Snell, who farms 450 acres in Herefordshire and who last year was awarded the Organic Producer of the Year award, said he was concerned that twice as much of the blackcurrant producers’ levy money was going into research and development compared with the money used for promoting sales.

The whole UK blackcurrant market is dominated by one buyer and one product, GlaxoSmithKline and Ribena, who take 10,500 tonnes from 40 dedicated growers.

Snell wanted an expansion of other outlets and new blackcurrant based products but he pointed to statistics that showed sales of fresh and frozen blackcurrants were falling behind other soft fruits.

“We have to get more out from markets especially niche markets focussed on the healthy aspects of eating more blackcurrants,” he told delegates attending the International Blackcurrant conference in Dundee yesterday

He admitted there were major difficulties in servicing the fresh market, ranging from high hand picking costs, short shelf life and even a short harvesting season when compared with other soft fruits.

Sales prospects on the world market were not much brighter, with Snell claiming that “throughout the world” blackcurrant sales are static.

“We should be collaborating more than we do and working together to develop new markets,” he told the 200 or so blackcurrant growers, researchers and marketing experts from more than 20 countries across the globe attending the conference.

Critical to any expansion of the crop would be new cultivars, especially those with higher sugar levels than exist currently. The James Hutton Institute, under its former banner of the Scottish Crop Research Institute, has bred most of the current market leaders in the world of blackcurrants

Rex Brennan, the head of the breeding programme, told delegates that the use of molecular markers to pick up genetic traits was really providing a big impetus for new varieties.

Previously, it could take up to 15 years to bring a new variety forward as well as necessitating the growing of thousands of seedlings but by being able to pin down specific traits, both the time taken and the numbers involved could be reduced. He expected a whole range of new varieties to come forward in the next couple of years and these would include ones with high sugar levels targeted at the fresh market.