Now available in major UK supermarkets, the fruit has been imported from Zimbabwe and South Africa and if successful, will be a permanent feature in the stone fruit calendar.
Danny Francis, business unit director of stone fruit at Dartford-based AG Thames, commented: “The quality of the Oz Peach and Nectarine collection from the Southern Hemisphere is consistently good.
“We have been very pleased with the first rate eating quality of all varieties from across the range.
“Not only is the quality of the Oz Peach and Nectarine series excellent, the fruit also has a longer shelf life than other early peach and nectarine collections.”
AG Thames invested in an exclusive planting, breeding and marketing agreement in the Northern Hemisphere for the Oz series in February 2010.
Ben Clapham, director of Newstairs, which is AG Thames’s innovation arm, recently travelled to Zimbabwe and South Africa with growers from Europe and North Africa to see the Oz series in commercial production.
The purpose of the visit was for the AG Thames grower-partners to see first hand the fruit range growing on mature trees, giving them insight into how production will look over the forthcoming years.
Danny Francis continued: “The Oz collection will be particularly interesting to growers and retailers alike.
“It provides the grower and retailer access to strong early season fruit at a time where consistency has been difficult to achieve.”
