12/10/2025
🍓🍋🥑🍉🍅🍋🟩🥒🥕🌽🥦
Market Update
🥒🌽🥕🥦🍅🍌🍏🍐
🍐🍋𝗙𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀...
We’re in the in-between-seasons period, when apples and pears are starting to become scarce (and pricey), but typical summer fruit – stone fruit, mangoes – is still not abundant. Luckily, berries are carrying us over this gap – especially blueberries - but the jumbo punnets of strawberries are finished 😱. Strawberry supply is in a state of flux right now: most Queensland fruit has finished up, some supply is coming out of West Australia (but the quality is hit and miss, and we’re a little suss about the long transport lines) – and Victoria is only a week or 2 away from starting its season. There are a lot of strawberry farms on Melbourne’s outskirts – around Monbulk, in the Yarra Valley, the Dandenong ranges and around Bacchus Marsh.
Meanwhile, Kensington Pride mangoes are holding their price – but R2E2s are getting cheaper. They’re on Marketplace now for $35 a tray – which works out to around $2 a mango. There was a time when R2's were not the best-eating mango around, but they have made big strides in flavour. And unlike KPs, they are not stringy.
Rockmelons and honeydew melons are good value, but don’t get us started on seedless watermelons: they are now approaching $3 a kilo, and this won’t improve for at least a few weeks.
🥦🫑𝗩𝗲𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀...
Most vegetables are excellent value again this week – with the notable exceptions of corn and beans. This time of year, both come from the same farm in Lockyer Valley, and over the past 2 weeks they’ve had machinery breaking down. So hopefully things will improve once they’ve repaired them.
All brassicas – from broccoli to cabbages and kale – are still cheap; avocadoes are tightening up a little, but still way cheaper than the $2 you’d pay in the supermarkets. Sugarsnap is out but snowpeas are good. All root vegetables are in good supply, with more beetroot coming from Pellicone Farms in Virginia, SA. Cucumbers are cheap, especially baby Q’s at $1.79 a serve (around 200g).
Tomatoes remain good value, especially truss tomatoes and Roma. Pumpkins and zucchini are in good supply, but summer squash is taking a break.
Spuds remain pricey for another few weeks until SA gets going.
Raymond Camilleri is picking green Globe Artichokes in Freemans Reach this week: they’re under $2 each, but you’ll see them in the shops typically for $3-4.