Serving up ace fruits at Wimbledon

Barbecues and burnt sausages, festivals and muddy wellies, dads still in the shorts they’ve been wearing since March – these are the classic traditions of a British summer. Best of all: strawberries drowned in cream and, yes, it must be pouring cream. You may also be particular about your cream – whether drizzled, dolloped or sprayed – but it’s the strawberry that’s the star of this double act.

“Fresh out the punnet,” is the best way to eat them according to Marion Regan, strawberry connoisseur, third-generation farmer and supplier of strawberries to the Wimbledon Championships for more than 30 years. It’s as though they simply appear each year, with the return of the sun. It’s easy to think of strawberries as an effortless part of the same spectacle as Centre Court and Murray Mound, but behind every punnet served at Wimbledon is a chain of planning and a year of work, so that the perfect taste of summer arrives right on time.

Hugh Lowe Farms (originally called Champion Brothers when it was founded by Marion’s grandfather in 1893) is in Kent, and Ben, Marion’s son, describes the surrounding countryside as like Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox. Like Boggis, Bunce and Bean, each farm has its own crop. Many of the neighbouring farmers are somehow related to the family. “I’ve got all 10 fingers and toes,” Ben says, quickly adding that it’s not that intertwined… “But it’s close.” 

As far as the eye can see there are white arched coverings, there to protect the crops from extreme sunlight or rain. Underneath are elevated planters in uniform rows, but there is a wildness to the order. Plants spill down from their trays and the strawberries hang at shoulder height. The sweet fragrance is immediate and surrounding, like stepping off a plane into the warmth of a tropical holiday.

During the summer, the farm employs around 800 workers. Some, like Tsvatan, originally from Bulgaria, come for a season but end up staying – in his case 25 years. What began as a summer job became a life. He met his wife on the farm and together they have raised two sons. “I can’t count how many babies we are responsible for,” Ben jokes. 

The pickers’ hands move quickly through the foliage, and selecting the ripest fruits before sorting them into punnets is a real art, they say. The key to the perfect Wimbledon strawberry, Marion says, is their size. The smaller ones are better as they are easier to balance on the wooden cutlery. Once the strawberries are picked they are chilled overnight, then weighed, packed and loaded into lorries. The strawberries for Wimbledon are guaranteed to be delivered within 24 hours of being picked. 

“We’re just over 30 miles from SW19,”Marion says. “I think that’s what gives us the edge.” The farm sends 40-50 tons of strawberries to London during the Wimbledon fortnight, she adds: “That’s close to 2m berries, all of which are hand-selected and checked.” Finally, if cream really must be involved with Marion’s strawberries, she says she adds “a twist of black pepper – it really brings out the flavour.”