The Final Pick: From tree to tummy in less than three weeks
Never mind an apple a day, how about 10,000 apples a day!? Three years on and our award-winning ‘Final Pick’ initiative with Worldwide Fruit is still going strong. Every autumn, we team up with their harvesting team to make sure every single apple left across their 200 hectare orchards doesn’t go to waste and instead feeds our 100,000 members across England.
Handpicked apples fresh from the tree
Based on the south coast in Kent, Technical Manager, Simon and his relentless picking crew work from dawn til dusk seven days a week to complete what the farming industry calls ‘The Final Pick’ of apples that would have remained on the tree at the end of the season.
In the past three weeks, they have harvested over 651,000 surplus apples that we are redistributing to our 130 hubs right now. That’s the equivalent of 217,000 meals or in tastier terms, 108,000 apple pies! Our members are currently enjoying an abundance of fresh-from-the-orchard classics, Gala, Smitten and Cox varieties to the more unusual Pink Pearl apples that are pink inside!
The Final Pick almost complete
Bread and Butter founder, Mark Game says: “We’ve been working with Worldwide Fruit since June 2021 and our partnerships just keeps growing, much like their apples! They are driven by a zero waste approach which very much aligns with our own mission. And it goes without saying that variety and quality of produce never fails to impress and plays a huge part in improving access to healthy food for our communities.” Our members are in for a treat for months to come!
We’ve been working in partnership with Lincolnshire-based fruit distributor since June 2021, ensuring that Worldwide Fruit’s surplus produce is used to feed families in deprived communities across England and beyond in a unique collaborative approach that has already seen hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fruit saved each year. From apples and pears to peaches, plums, nectarines and avocados – they’ve generously donated over 20 million pieces of fruit, preventing over over 990,000 kgs of CO2 at landfill, since our partnership began and together we work APPLE-y ever after!
