Six ways to save money on . . . fruit

publication date: Jul 21, 2008

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author/source: Fiona Beckett

It’s high summer. The perfect time of year to feast on fresh fruit - and the cheapest, you’d think. But that’s not necessarily the case. There are bargains to be found away from the fresh produce counter . . .

* Buy frozen
Foodie heresy these days but in-season fruit isn’t necessarily the best buy. It’s one of the items on which supermarkets make their greatest profit. If you want berries, for example, you’re often better to buy frozen than fresh. My local Tesco sells a 500g pack of mixed berries including blackcurrants, blackberries and raspberries for about £1.50. You can easily pay £1.99 for 170g if they’re fresh. Frozen raspberries and blueberries are also worth buying, especially if you're cooking with them.

* Buy tinned fruit.
Not every fruit cans well but tinned lychees, grapefruit and pears are delicious, especially with ice cream and warm chocolate sauce (the pears, that is . . . ) Kids love mandarin oranges too - great made into jellies. Other tinned fruits such as apricots, peaches and mangoes are improved by adding apple, lemon or lime juice to sharpen them up.

* Buy unfashionable fruit
Like pineapple which for some unfathomable reason nobody rates much these days. (I’ve been blogging about that today) Or melon. Or ‘80’s favourite, kiwi fruit - fantastically high in vitamin C. Even out of season oranges are pretty good value because nobody can be bothered to peel them, it seems.

* Mix an expensive fruit with a less expensive one to make it stretch
Cook up berries with apples or pears or mix fresh strawberries with tinned apricots as in this refreshing fruit salad.

* Buy fruit in markets
There are always fantastic bargains, especially towards the end of the day. Just don’t go overboard and buy more than you can eat, cook or freeze as market produce tends to be riper and keeps less well than supermarket fruit. Particularly good for exotic fruits like mangoes which are expensive in supermarkets. And cheap bananas.

* Pick your own
Not only a good way to pick up cheap and fabulously fresh fruit but great fun too. Again don’t buy more than you can use or it’ll end up costing more than in a conventional shop. There’s a useful website called pick-your-own.info which tells you what’s in season and where to find your nearest PYO. Or look up yell.com. (Farm shops can be good value too so long as you stick to the produce they grow themselves)