Bountiful berries are blooming big business for Arbroath firm

Raspberries hit the sweet spot every time for the boss of Angus Soft Fruits, the £166 million turnover berry business based in Arbroath.

John Gray, managing director of Angus Soft Fruits (ASF), told me the juicy and mildly tart “rasps” are his favourite of all the firm’s produce. He likes them best raw and on their own.

ASF breeds, grows and packs berries from around the world. It is a huge business – accounts lodged at Companies House earlier this year show it turned over £166.3m during the 12 months to April 30 2025. This was up from just over £150m the year before.

Meanwhile, pre-tax profits lifted slightly to £2.5m in the latest period from just over £2.4m previously. Operating profits surged to £3.33m in 2024-25 from £1.65m the year before.

In a report with the accounts, bosses said these were boosted last year by the increased volumes and the closure of an underperforming Dutch business in the period.

They added:

“Profit before tax remains similar to 2024 as investments in some of our overseas farming units were affected by adverse weather conditions.”

Summing up the company’s mission, they said:

“Our aim is to consistently deliver great tasting berries that will delight our customers.”

ASF has developed strong and long-lasting relationships with farming partners, both in the UK and abroad, to provide the quality of soft fruit demanded by today’s consumers.

Although the majority of group sales are UK-based, the firm continues to pursue new export opportunities in Asia and the Middle East. It works with a range of retailers, wholesalers and food service customers throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Family-owned ASF also invests in developing new fruit varieties through teams in the UK and Spain.

Fruit volumes grew during the year to April 2025 but there was also a “bit of inflation” boosting total sales, John said.

“Our bottom line was fairly steady,” he said. “This highlights how difficult it is out there, in terms of cost inflation, and what we have been able to get out of the market.”

Consumer demand is healthy, with 88% of those surveyed regularly buying berries, John told me. He added:

“As a whole, the UK soft fruit industry is seeing double-digit growth.”

So, why are people eating more berries? John explained:

“A lot of it is to do with health going more and more up people’s agenda. Everyone knows berries are healthy. Rich in fibre, antioxidants and overall dietary goodness, berries tick all the boxes.”

Growing demand for GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) weight loss and diabetes medicines is creating new opportunities for healthy foods like berries, John said. He added:

“People will be buying less of the bad stuff, like alcohol and sugary drinks. Fibre is going to be the next big thing in terms of health.”

The premium end of the soft fruit market is growing “disproportionately fast”, he said. Ava Berries is ASF’s premium brand of fruit specially selected for its exceptional appearance, flavour, texture, disease resistance and longer shelf life. The brand is sold by retailers across Europe and Asia.

In order to ensure steady supplies throughout the year ASF sources fruit in about 15 countries globally. The company has teams on the ground in the UK, Spain, Morocco and Chile. It has about 100 specialists and a further 150 people directly employed in its UK operations. If you include the number of seasonal workers employed by ASF growers around the world, the Arbroath-headquartered company supports more than 4,000 jobs globally.

ASF and its producers’ organisation Angus Growers have a number of packing sites around the UK to ensure fruit – both imported and domestic – is quality controlled, stored, packed and dispatched efficiently. This ensures only the highest quality fruit reaches the end customer.

As well as the HQ at East Seaton Farm, ASF’s Scottish sites include packhouses in Arbroath, Carnoustie, Leven and Perth. South of the border, operations in Evesham, Worcestershire, include four chilling storage areas kept at different temperatures specific for each product type as well as high-tech packing facilities. As John put it, it all adds up to “a lot of fruit”.

ASF produces four kinds of soft fruit – strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries.

The company has been growing delicious berries for more than 30 years. It was founded, in 1994, by three passionate growers – Lochy Porter, his father, Willie, and cousin, James Gray, with the aim of supplying quality berries directly to retailers.

Their innovative soft fruit breeding programme led to the first Ava strawberry in 2003. ASF specialists breed berries at a high-tech trials site equipped with glasshouses, polythene tunnels and outdoor areas which replicate growing environments worldwide.

Their ultimate goal is to develop fruit which surpasses current market standards in flavour, appearance, shelf life, disease resistance and yield. Ava strawberry varieties launched so far include Alicia, Blush, Catalina, Magnum, Star, and Sofiia. Two new raspberry “works of art” take their names from great painters, Monet and Dali.

John, whose dad, James, was one of the founding trio at ASF, told me there will be more new products from the innovation pipeline launched within the next year or two. Gordon Porter, Lochy’s son, is a sales and sourcing manager at the company. He’s part of a “strong team” in the business, John said.

Scotland’s soft fruit industry is high value, with the berry sector alone estimated to be worth nearly
£200m annually to the economy.

The country’s east coast has an ideal microclimate for growing berries, John said. He added:

“It’s mild and gentle most of the time. The climate doesn’t get too cold or hot. We have the optimum growing conditions for sweet, tasty berries.”

While the weather conditions may support local growers, rising costs do not.

John said:

“The cost of production has gone up significantly, driven primarily by labour.”

Workforce expenses account for about half the total cost of production, with national minimum wage increases heaping considerable pressure on growers, he explained. More recently, rising fuel prices have been driving up overheads for soft fruit growers.

“We live in such an interconnected world so, of course, there will be a cost impact,” John said. He added: “This is all very challenging for a sector which has a lot of complexity to it.”

Brexit created issues for farms sourcing seasonal labour. Workers are “still coming through” but they tend to be from much further afield than was the case in the past, John said. It’s not unusual to have people travelling from the Caspian region for jobs, he added.

Despite all the challenges, John and his team are relishing another busy summer for Scottish berry growers.

This article was published in the Courier on 9 May 2026