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Ortaggi Ltd

The Market Note

Free, New Covent Garden Market, Every Monday

Know what is at its best before you order

Franco's read from the New Covent Garden floor, sent first thing Monday, before you write the week's order.

  • What's worth buying this week, and what's about to turn
  • What to leave alone, and why, before it reaches your pass
  • Where supply is heading, with every call sourced and dated

One email each Monday. We send the note, nothing else.

This week's note

Spanish lemons up a fifth, oranges lighter

Week 45 Monday 2 November 2026

Spain's summer heat thinned the orange and clementine crop, lemons are up a fifth, and in Almería red peppers nearly doubled in a week.

Region watch

  1. Spain

    Direction: Tight

    citrus, above all oranges & clementines

    As of MAPA forecast, 16 Sep 2026

  2. Spain

    Direction: Plentiful

    lemons

    As of 2026/27 forecast, Sep 2026

  3. Almería, Spain

    Direction: Dearer

    peppers, aubergines & cucumbers

    As of auctions of 23 to 31 Oct 2026

  4. England

    Direction: Steady

    apples & pears

    As of 2026 crop, growers' estimate of Aug 2026

Worth buying

  • Spanish lemons: the crop is forecast a fifth up on last season —
  • Cucumbers: fell on the Almería auctions, French by half —
  • Green peppers: eased at Almería while the reds climbed steeply —
  • English Bramleys, Cox & Conference: a sweet crop after the warm summer —
  • Brussels sprouts & tops: in season and sweetening as the nights cool —

Hold off

  • Red California peppers: nearly doubled in a week at Almería —
  • Aubergines: more than doubled on the same boards —
Read this week's note

The Buyers Walk

Written by Franco, who walks it with Giuseppe.

Sunday to Friday nights from 12.30 am

A stepped pyramid of crates on hessian: chestnut mushrooms, portobellos, oyster mushrooms, shiitake and king oysters, with a crate of wild girolles and ceps at the front.

Giuseppe and Franco are on the stands at New Covent Garden from about half past midnight, so the Note tells you what they have seen that week: what is good, what is scarce, and which way prices are moving.

From the market

Earlier notes

A weekly letter from the market floor: which regions are at their best, what is coming into season and what is leaving it, and how we would buy around both. Free to read, every Monday morning.

Read all the notes

  1. Peppers go Spanish — but no cheaper

    Dutch glasshouse season closes, Spain's peppers open near last winter's highs, and Britain faces its smallest potato crop on record — what to buy instead.

  2. Pear glut: smaller sizes are the value buy

    Europe's pear growers are sitting on surplus, Peru's blueberry crop is tightening again, and Britain's first frosts are sweetening the brassicas.

  3. Tomatoes ease; British apples firm up

    Glasshouse tomatoes ease as Dutch and Belgian volumes recover — but the EU's smallest apple crop in nine years makes British apples the firm buy.