Bringing you the latest news on British products in the supermarkets and other major items of interest about British food; here is our round-up for June.

• British cucumbers and salad growers have seem plummeting prices as the devastating E.coli outbreak has hit shopper's confidence. Suppliers report cucumber wholesale prices were down by 30% in the immediate wake of the crisis. Scientists believe the E.coli is linked to German beansprouts NOT cucumbers - so regain your confidence and buy a British cucumber today!


• Soaring cereal and oil seed prices mean pig producers have incurred high losses since August last year and as a result farmers are culling 15% more breeding sows and replacing fewer pigs – an indication that there will be fewer high-welfare pigs in the future. Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's have all responded - Asda has been paying an additional 8p per kilo since the start of the year; Tesco is working closely with the National Pig Association and British Pig Executive; and Sainsbury's has pledged 5p per kilo until 1 August or until the deadweight average pig price stabilizes to £1.50/kg.  Vion – the large food manufacturer - is also doing its bit by launching a ‘Put Pork on Your Fork’ campaign, fronted by TV presenter and farmer, Jimmy Doherty to encourage consumers to eat more pork.


• Sainsbury's and M&S are stepping up their efforts to encourage shoppers to buy fish from sustainable resources in a fresh attempt to alleviate pressure on threatened stocks. Sainsbury's is offering customers lesser known species, such as coley, pouting and megrim, to try for free while later this month M&S is using the profit from its 5p food carrier bag charge to finance its ‘Forever Fish’ campaign. 


• Raymond Blanc is creating an orchard to grow 200 long forgotten varieties of fruit for his kitchen. Some of the apple varieties being grown in the orchard include Golden Noble (discovered in 1820 at Stowe Hall in Downham, Norfolk) and Tom Putt (discovered near Trent in Somerset in the 1700's).


• UK beef producers have won the right to export products to South Africa. The country was the largest non-EU market for English beef prior to the BSE crisis in 1996.


• Booths has taken delivery of this year's first crop of ‘Dug Today’ potatoes, which are harvested in the early hours of the morning and delivered to stores the same day. Booths predicts it will sell 60 tonnes of the potatoes this year.


• Starbucks has introduced a new bacon buttie to its stores. The new buttie saw a team test 12,000 rashers with 20 varieties of bread before selecting British bacon!


• Tesco's has overtaken Sainsbury's as the UK's biggest seller of home grown apples and pears. Tesco has sold 35.4% more British ground fruit this season compared to last year, while Sainsbury's has sold 7.8% fewer.


• Asda is investing £27 million to introduce market-leading quality specifications across all fresh meat and produce. Three times as many quality assurance inspectors are now operating across Asda depots and on its supplier's farms than a year ago as part of the investment.


• Waitrose has launched a ‘Championing British’ campaign with new in-store signage, adverts and recipes, helping customers enjoy quality, seasonal produce at home. The campaign kick-started in May with the supermarket slashing a third off ingredients used to make Heston Blumenthal's British asparagus egg dippers with Scottish smoked salmon recipe.


• Marmite has been banned in Denmark because it breaks food laws passed in 2004 governing the sale of products fortified with added vitamins. Until now Marmite had escaped the attention of food chiefs and it is unclear as to why the Danish authorities have recently launched a crackdown on foods with too many vitamins.


• Sales of lamb have fallen 14.4% as high prices bought on by the booming export market of British lamb to the continent cause UK shoppers to look for cheaper meats.


• Sainsbury's has rolled out its in-house butchery range to 20 more stores, bringing the total to 140. The ‘Cut and Pack’ range is different from the regular pre-pack range as it looks at maturation, regional British sourcing and sometimes pack size and piece count.


• Waitrose stores are cashing in on the foraging trend by stocking native Scottish sea vegetables such as samphire and sea aster to its fresh fish counters.


• More than a quarter of UK shoppers say they plan to grow their own fresh fruit and vegetables this year!


• Sainsbury's has launched a UK-grown baby new potato variety that's similar to Jersey Royals but sold outside the traditional May season. ‘Taste the Difference British Gems’ are grown in East Anglia and the West Country and go from field to store in less than 48 hours.


• Food from the offspring of cloned animals, including meat and milk, has been approved for sale without labels as ministers argue the offspring of clones are the same as animals produced through conventional breeding. They claim existing animal cruelty laws are sufficient to deal with any problems. But Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, the Co-op, M&S and Waitrose have all responded to customers concerns by pledging not to use meat or milk from clone offspring in their own-label products. 


• Finally, Sainsbury's launched the most new ‘British’ products last year. The supermarket launched 102 products which indicated ‘British' on the on-pack description compared with M&S who only launched 51.

Seasonal foods at their best to look out for in the supermarkets this month: 
Vegetables: artichoke, asparagus, aubergine, beetroot, broad beans, broccoli, carrots, courgettes, cucumber, fennel, garlic, jersey royal new potatoes, kohlrabi, lettuces and salad leaves, mangetout, new potatoes, onions, peas, potatoes (maincrop), radishes, rhubarb, rocket, runner beans, samphire, spinach, spring onions, turnips, watercress and wild nettles.
Fruit: blueberries, cherries, chillies, elderflowers, gooseberries, greengages, raspberries, redcurrants, strawberries and tomatoes.
Herbs: basil, chervil, chives, coriander, dill, elderflowers, mint, mushrooms (cultivated), mushrooms (wild), nasturtium, oregano, parsley (curly), parsley (flat-leaf), rosemary, sage, sorrel, tarragon and thyme.
Meat: beef, chicken, lamb, pork, rabbit and wood pigeon.
Fish: cockles, cod, coley, conger eel, crab, grey mullet, haddock, herring, john dory, lemon sole, langoustine, lobster, mackerel, plaice, pollack, prawns, salmon, sardines, scallops, sea trout, shrimp, squid, whelks and whitebait.
See at the touch of a button all the British produce currently available in the supermarkets - [search Want to Buy British by product or by supermarket].