What Britain Buys and Sells in a Day: Fruit and Veg (BBC 2 Wednesday 31 May 2023)

What Britain Buys and Sells in a Day: Fruit and Veg airs Wednesday 31 May 2023 on BBC 2.

Ed Balls, Ade Adepitan, and Cherry Healey, in the premiere of a three-part series, explore the fast-paced world of British imports and exports. They investigate how much we understand about the science and systems that allow Britain to import and export goods around the world on an unprecedented scale as our trading relationships face their biggest change in decades.

Ed visits the massive port of London Gateway on the Thames to learn how our favourite fruits and vegetables make it from around the world to grocery store shelves without a scratch. From his experience as a truck driver perched on a 16-story crane to his investigation into the oxygen deprivation technique used to preserve apples, he reveals every secret of the fresh produce export industry.

Ade explores how Britain’s shifting preferences for produce affect farmers in other countries. First, he travels to Peru to investigate how the thriving avocado industry is a direct result of the British public’s renewed interest in eating healthily. After that, he travels to a Dutch company that maintains 11 thousand greenhouses. Nearly 400 thousand tonnes of tomatoes per year can be produced here, with the majority destined for the United Kingdom. Then, he travels to one of Spain’s major grape-growing regions to learn how local growers cater to the British market by cultivating grapes that are both sweet and crunchy.

Meanwhile, Cherry visits British manufacturers to learn about the products and methods we export to unexpected locations. She begins in Evesham, where she studies the role that importers play in keeping Britain supplied with fresh produce. Later, she meets a British farmer who exports apples to the Middle East because Brits consider them too large for convenient on-the-go snacking. She also has a conversation with a sparkling wine producer whose product is in high demand all over the world and a Cambridgeshire potato farmer who is selling potatoes to the Irish.

Season 1 Episode 1

What Britain Buys and Sells in a Day: Fruit and Veg airs Wednesday 31 May 2023 at 3.15pm on BBC 2

Featured Image Credit: BBC 2