Every year, right at the beginning of August, the phone goes. It is our sweetcorn farmer, and he has grown sweetcorn for us for the last thirty years. Same call every summer: "When are you coming to get the sweetcorn? It's all ready for you. It's looking really good and we've started." You can set your watch by it.
This year the phone never rang
The beginning of August came and went. No call. So I rang him myself, and that is when he told me. The sweetcorn was no good at all this year. The sun had burnt it.
Here is the bit most people never see. He plants it out in the fields, and to keep it going through a dry spell he has to pump water up out of his reservoir with a diesel generator. With diesel as dear as it has been this year, he worked it out and told me straight: it would cost him more to water the crop than he could ever sell it to us for. So he could not justify it, and the corn just got burnt in the sun. The whole lot was no good.
He did say there is a second batch that was drilled later, which he will look at towards the end of September, and that might come good. But for us, that was a disaster. We sell a lot of sweetcorn every year, and we were looking at a season with none.
Then, two days later, a random email
Two days after that call, out of nowhere, I got an email from a completely different farm. "Are you interested in sweetcorn this year? We've got loads of it."
So I went over there the other day to have a look, and what I found was beautiful. While I was there the farmer picked five cobs for me to take home for the family. We ate them that night, and I swear to you, they were delicious. Really sweet. That was all I needed to see. We told him we would take a pallet, and he delivered it to us yesterday.
Not Essex sweetcorn. Kent sweetcorn. And honestly, it's beautiful.
So here is the honest version. This is not our usual corn, and it is not Essex sweetcorn. It has come from the other side of the river, so it is Kent sweetcorn. But it is genuinely lovely, and I would not put it on the shelf if it was not. You have got to try it. It is five for £2.50, and it is some of the best sweetcorn we have had in a long while. You will find it with the rest of our fresh vegetables, or go straight to the corn on the cob and add it to your basket.
A quick word on the winter ahead
I will be straight with you, because I think this is only the tip of the iceberg. The growing conditions this year have been so poor that fresh produce is going to be difficult right through the winter, and things like cauliflower are going to get expensive. But we have navigated tough seasons before. We will keep going out to the farms, keep finding the good stuff wherever it is growing well, and keep bringing you the best quality at the best possible prices throughout.
Come and grab some
The Kent sweetcorn is in the shop now on Southend Road in Billericay, and online with delivery across Essex. Get it while it is at its best. I really think you will love it as much as we did.