Berries

Delicious and nutritious, berries are the fruits that really have it all! With over 25 types of berry, everyone is sure to find one they love. Sweet and colourful they are great to add, texture, flavour and a vibrant touch of colour to your dishes. From a salad to a roast dinner, berries can be used in any course of a meal, at any time of day, so you can enjoy berry goodness 24/7/365!

What Actually Are Berries?!

Berries are a very complicated fruit as there are different definitions. The botanical definition is a ‘simple fleshy fruit that usually has many seeds. As a simple fruit, a berry is derived from a single ovary of an individual flower’. However, this definition also includes bananas, watermelons, grapes, tomatoes and other fruits. We more commonly consider berries as edible soft fruits, small in size and a vibrant red or purple colour due to the anthocyanin pigment present. There are even some wild berries that are poisonous when unripe such as mulberries and elderberries, but are edible when ripe.

The History Of Berries

Berries are a tasty and nutritional food source that are loved worldwide and are perfect for many diets. The word berry comes from the Old English word berie, which originally meant grape. Many berries are edible and some of our favourite fruits, they’re often eaten worldwide in jams, preserves, fruit compotes, desserts, salads and more. When sugar became a popular preservative, berry preserves, were used as a way of making berries last through the winter. Traditionally, foraging wild berries was just a means of gathering food, but berry-picking at fruit farms has now become a fun seasonal activity in Europe and North America.

How To Determine The Quality Of Berries

The darker the berry the sweeter the juice! The best berries are those with a deep, vibrant colour and tight-skin. They should be firm and you’ll notice they will smell distinctly like the fruit, which indicates they’re sweet, juicy and rich in flavour. Shrivelled berries are likely to go ‘off’ within a couple of days and dark spots on strawberries and raspberries usually mean they are bruised or over-ripe and will also only last a day or two.

As berries are fragile, one bruised fruit can go bad and spoil the rest, so it’s best to separate any bruised fruits from the bunch. You can usually tell if there are any damaged fruits in the punnet, as there may be stains from the juice of the container. If they are just bruised and haven’t gone mouldy, don’t waste them as they can still be used in jams, compotes, smoothies and much more.

How Should Berries Be Stored?

Storing berries in the refrigerator is the best way to prevent them from going bad quickly and like most fruit and vegetables ventilation is key. After washing the fruits, place them into prep trays lined with a fresh paper towel and store them in the fridge.

How To Prepare Berries

Many believe you shouldn’t wash berries until you’re ready to eat them, but as many berries have pores and crevices, they can carry mould spores. Leaving them will only make the fruit go bad quicker and it’s easy for the mould to spread amongst the batch. One way to rid your berries of bacteria is a vinegar and water bath. Soaking the fruits in a diluted solution of 2 tablespoons of white vinegar mixed with around 750ml of water will kill the bacteria. Afterwards rinse thoroughly using colander so there’s no lingering taste of vinegar and pat dry with a paper towel, but be sure not to run the faucet directly onto the fruit as intense water pressure will easily squish soft fruits.

Nutritional Benefits Of Berries

Berries have many nutritional benefits such as being loaded with antioxidants and being a good source of vitamin C and folate. Folate and vitamins C both support the immune system and help reduce tiredness and fatigue. Whilst vitamin C also contributes to supporting your energy-yielding metabolism and helps protect cells from oxidative stress. The antioxidant properties of berries have been shown to protect against the most common diseases related to oxidative stress, such as cardiovascular disease, inflammation, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. These heart-healthy fruits can be enjoyed on nearly all types of diets so it’s a win, win for everyone.

Seasonality Of Berries

From spring through to summer is peak season for berries in the UK, so usually May to September, however blackberries can grow in October and cranberries grow best in November and December.

How Do Berries Grow?

Summer berries such as strawberries and raspberries need optimal sunlight, whereas blackberries and winterberries like cranberries for example need significantly less as they can grow in autumn and winter. Nutritious soil is always essential and fertiliser is also a great aid in the growth of these fruit bearing plants. Most of the more popular berries grow on bushes such as strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries and don’t need much space for individual plants to grow. However, a few types of berry, albeit the lesser known ones, do grow on trees for example mulberries, juniper berries and acai berries. Those deemed more popular are usually types of berries that are widely domesticated, whereas, lesser known types are more wild berries.

Where Are Our Berries From?

During UK berry season, our berries are grown and supplied by Angus Soft Fruits in Arbroath, Scotland and Evesham in England. Throughout the year, when out of season in the UK we source through our UK partners, berries grown oversees.

You can find out more about the suppliers we work with here. 

Types Of Berries

Strawberry

Strawberries are one of the most popular fruits worldwide and commonly used as a popular flavour for confectionary, beverages, even medicines and much more. When ripe, the taste is sweet, sometimes slightly tangy and the texture is firm, but soft when bit into, with the seeds creating a slight crunch.

Blueberry

Blueberries are extremely tight-skinned and are much firmer than most berries they’re sweet with a sour/acidic note and very juicy. Blueberries are particularly high in antioxidants and are popular in smoothies.

Raspberry

Raspberries are an aggregate fruit made up of ‘drupelets’ which are individual chunks that form together to make the whole berry. They can be purple and are often mistaken for blackberries, but are most commonly red. Raspberries are especially high in vitamin C and are sweet, they can be tarte when under ripe, but less tarte than blackberries.

Blackberry

Blackberries are actually a dark purple colour and an extremely delicate fruit, prone to squishing. Many varieties of blackberry can thrive in mild environments which is why they grow in late summer to early autumn in the UK. Ripe blackberries can be sweet and tangy, whereas, unripe blackberries can be quite bitter.

Gooseberry

Gooseberries have a distinctly different look to other berries, in fact, they resemble large green grapes with a veined-effect on the skin. As a more traditional berry, gooseberries have been popular in Britain as far back as the Elizabethan times, but are now one of the lesser known types. Used in fruit pies and compotes, they have a savoury, sharp taste, almost citric, with a subtle sweetness.

Cranberry

Cranberries are a winter berry as their growing season in autumn/winter. Popular as an accompaniment to Turkey and as a juice. Cranberry juice is commonly used in alcoholic beverage or consumed on its own. There is research to demonstrate that cranberry juice can be used to treat urinary tract infections (UTI) as it inhibits infection-causing bacteria from populating.

Our Berries

We stock all sorts of berries for all uses! Here you can find some of the varieties of berries we stock, when available. Please contact our team to discuss your requirements, or login to our online ordering or app to place your order for berries..

Berries & Soft Fruit

Blackberry

Add to Enquiry
Berries & Soft Fruit

Blueberry

Add to Enquiry
Berries & Soft Fruit

Raspberry Red

Add to Enquiry
Berries & Soft Fruit

Strawberry

Add to Enquiry
Chilled Drinks & Purees

Strawberry Puree – Chilled

Add to Enquiry
Sauces, Pastes, Dressings & Condiments

Cranberry Sauce

Add to Enquiry
Chilled Drinks & Purees

Raspberry Puree – Chilled

Add to Enquiry
Jams, Preserves & Spreads

Tiptree Strawberry Jam

Add to Enquiry

Recipes With Berries

Here’s some delicious recipe inspiration for your menus featuring juicy berries!

Recipe

Spiced Roast Duck With Hay Baked Celeriac, Pickled Blackberries, Port Sauce & Duck Liver Toastie

 View Recipe
Recipe

Strawberry Arctic Roll Topped With Basil & Lime Marinated Strawberries

 View Recipe
Recipe

Roasted pheasant breast, confit leg, creamed sprouts and chestnuts, pheasant and port jus with blackberries

 View Recipe