Realistically it's quite an involved story because I was born in England, and did all my schooling and various degrees etc in horticulture there and then I just decided to travel the world and you know, just to sort of get a bit of experience.

And the original idea was to go back home to the family farm in England. But it didn't actually happen. In basic terms I worked my way around for three or four years and got as far as Australia, and didn't go any further I suppose you could say.

And I worked on a number of other jobs, you know, for a period of time. But I guess your roots bring you back to what you've been trained for and what you grew up with, my father being an orchardist etc. So I was pretty keen to get back into it and well I basically ended up in Stanley after having a look at the place.

Snowline fruits actually started... was first registered in 1980, September 1980 and has been going as a small enterprise for a number of years.

We now have 35 acres which encompasses mainly apples, chestnuts, but because of the, perhaps should we say apple market and the prices and the supermarkets etc etc diversification has become a big thing, we're actually now moving into soft fruit and stone fruit and pears. Which is partly connected to the farm shop etc. But I guess that's another separate issue.

I mean the weather and its intricacies are one thing. The second thing would be the challenges in the marketing system. Basically, you know, we've got a considerable problem in this industry or in the horticultural industry in general, in the returns that we're getting for the product that we produce.

It appears that the two big supermarkets want to go cheaper and cheaper all the time and generally it seems to be at the growers expense.

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