11:45am Wednesday 23rd July 2008
By Tim Saunders
THOUSANDS of punnets of East Dorset blueberries are being snapped up each week by Marks & Spencer and Tesco.
And ice-cream from Purbeck is also ending up on Tesco's shelves as local companies prove they can compete with major competitors.
"Seventy-five per cent of our business comes from Marks & Spencer," said managing director of Wimborne-based Dorset Blueberries David Trehane, whose mother Jennifer is a director.
The business supplies about 25,000 punnets of blueberries each week to M&S.
He added: "We supply all the M&S depots throughout the UK and every day we are sending them 2,500 punnets of standard blueberries and 1,200 punnets of organic."
Director Jennifer Trehane said: "We have a very good relationship with M&S and every Thursday they have a taste test at their Baker Street head office. Our blueberries are always top until the end of August when the flavour deteriorates and Polish blueberries take over."
The small Dorset business has now entered another lucrative deal which sees Tesco taking between 6,000 and 7,000 punnets every week to supply 14 of its stores in the county.
"We're supplying 1,000 punnets of blueberries to Tesco every day," said Jennifer, who this year won a silver medal at Hampton Court for her produce.
Purbeck Ice Cream near Wareham has seen the advantages of working with a large supermarket too.
Sales director Patrick Ward said: "We supply four lines to Tesco: Vanilla Bean, Honeycomb Hash, Strawberry Seduction and a limited edition which changes every few months.
"Each month we deliver about £4,000 of stock to the central warehouse for distribution to the Dorset branches of Tesco.
"We have a good relationship with the supermarket. It's easy to deal with their regional buying office.
"But Tesco has been slow to jump on the bandwagon because Asda has been doing this for ages."
These Dorset businesses have helped Tesco achieve sales of £1m a week this month in its west country stores.
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