Get in quick: Scott’s selling strawberries while stocks last

Queues stretch way down Te Aute Rd as customers flock to Scott's Strawberry Farm. Photo / Paul Taylor

Rain might have taken “the real icing off the cake’' for Billy Scott and his fellow Hawke’s Bay strawberry growers, but the rest of us can still enjoy our pavlovas and trifles as normal.

Scott’s Strawberry Farm was doing an absolute roaring trade on Friday morning, with queues to get into their Te Aute Rd shop stretching 200 metres and wait times of about 30 minutes to be served.

But it sure looked worth it in the end as satisfied customers walked away with their punnets of gleaming red goodness.

The Strawberry Patch, on Havelock Rd, have unfortunately lost their crop to the wet weather, but Scott’s are still very much in the berry business ahead of Christmas Day.

“Pretty tough,’’ said Scott’s owner Billy Scott of the impact rain has had on the industry.

“So we’re selling a lot of second-grade fruit. That’s what we’ve mostly got.

“When we’re picking there’s about a 60 per cent take at the moment and 40 per cent’s going on the ground and then out of that 60 per cent a third’s good and two-thirds are not quite so good.’’

Not that you could tell from the naked eye. But as Scott sorts through the second-grade punnets, one or two tiny spots of rain damage become evident.

“Our seconds are pretty good seconds. They look perfect but they’re not, whereas our No 1 grade is that bit better.’’

That’s reflected in the price of their 700-gram punnets, with the second-grade fruit being sold for $10 and the first $22.

The extra time being spent sorting the strawberries - and the volume lost in the process - has put limits on the hours Scott’s can be open.

On Thursday it was 9am to 12pm, on Friday Scott had enough strawberries to open his business at 10am and expected to shut about 2pm. He will endeavour to be open for several hours on Christmas Eve, but it all comes down to stock.

“All of us [in the industry] were looking at really good tonnages for this year … in fact, the last two seasons we’ve had plenty of crop but we’ve just been taken out by weather, so the rain has just destroyed the crop.

“It has taken the real icing off the cake.’’