Here come the strawberries - all 28 tonnes of them

Soaring sales: 'You can't imagine Wimbledon without strawberries'
12 April 2012

Tennis fans will chomp through a whopping 28 tonnes of strawberries at this year's Wimbledon - that's between 1.5 and two million berries, with 7,000 litres of cream.

For £2.50 punters get a punnet containing at least 10 strawberries and a lashing of fresh cream.

The task of maintaining the grand slam event's fruit supply falls to Marion Regan, owner of Hugh Lowe Farms in Mereworth near Maidstone, Kent.

The farm has served the All England Championships for as long as Mrs Regan can remember and she took over the running of the farm from her father, who it was named after, nearly 20 years ago.

There are more than 400 pickers on the 50-year-old's farm but the task of picking strawberries for SW19 is entrusted to a team of
between 40 and 50.

They set out at daylight and by 5.30am thousands of berries are ready to go. They are collected from the 500-hectare farm soon after and served the next day to hungry tennis fans.

The summer tennis tournament sends sales of strawberries soaring but a prolonged run for Britain's big hope, Andy Murray, ensures demand for the fruit is at a premium.

Mrs Regan, 50, said: "It's a great gig.
"It is such an iconic event, it's so big and you don't want to get anything wrong, you feel very much in the public eye.

"You absolutely can't let them down. You can't imagine Wimbledon without strawberries."

Mrs Regan's strawberries are of the Elsanta variety - "very juicy, very sweet, and you can cut it with a plastic tea spoon".

She added: "It's very fresh. We are only 30 miles from London, probably the closest commercial strawberry farm to London. Our strawberries couldn't be fresher."

Wimbledon is the largest single annual sporting catering operation in Europe. Around 1,800 staff are employed to prepare and serve the fortnight's food and drink.

The numbers involved are staggering:

300,000 cups of tea and coffee
190,000 sandwiches
150,000 buns, scones, pasties and doughnuts
200,000 glasses of Pimm's
135,000 ice creams
100,000 pints of draught beer and lager
30,000 portions of fish and chips
30,000 litres of milk
22,000 slices of pizza
17,000 bottles of champagne
12,000 kilos of poached/smoked salmon

On top of that, more than 130,000 lunches are served, as well as 30,000 meals for the catering staff themselves.

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