Summer is coming!

Nothing says summer is arriving quite like the sweet, juicy flavours of stone fruits.

Whether you prefer peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots or cherries make the most of them quickly as unlike apples or pears, fresh stone fruits don’t store well.

Peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums are best ripened at room temperature, stem-end down. We recommend you don’t refrigerate them, order them little and often rather than taking a couple of weeks stock at a time. Cherries on the other hand are best straight from the refrigerator and used immediately.

At the peak of ripeness they are excellent roasted, poached or sautéed or tossed into salads, they are a true seasonal delight and a must feature on any menu written by a chef who focuses on seasonality.

Interesting fact: Did you know that almonds are a stone fruit ? On the tree, almonds look like small hard green peaches, inside this the almond shell looks similar to a peach pit and the kernel, which is what we eat, is the fruit’s seed. Culinary experts often point to a slight almond flavour in stone fruits and that’s one reason why cherries, peaches and apricots pair so well with almonds in recipes.