Strawberries signal summer in the UK is on its way

A sign that summer is on its way was heralded with the first British strawberries going on sale in supermarkets.

The fruit was stocked on shelves in 25 Morrisons stores around the south of England today while Tesco said it will sell its first home-grown strawberries in 15 stores in Kent from tomorrow before rolling them out across the rest of the country.

Waitrose and Sainsbury's are due to sell their first crop of British strawberries over the next few days while Asda is expected to follow soon. A spokesman for Tesco said that the sale of the fruit has been correlated to an increase of up to 15 per cent in sales of summer clothes at its stores.

Tesco strawberry buyer Ben Reed said: "Not only are we enjoying the first warm weather of the year this week but we've also now got the first British strawberries which means that summer is well and truly on the way.