PRUNES

Naturally at Western Commodities we source both organic prunes and conventional prunes and these come from selected growers in California and France. We can provide sorbated prunes, unsorbated prunes and pitted prunes. We can dice prunes in our organically certified factory.

Prunes originally came from the Caucasian Mountains bordering the Caspian Sea in the 12th century by the Crusaders who brought damson trees back from their Syrian expeditions. By crossing a damson tree with a local plum, the monks of Clairac Abbey (35 miles NW of Agen) created a new variety which they called the Ente plum, from the old French word "enter", meaning "to graft". The Clairac monks were also the first to realise that the fruit could be preserved for a whole year after being dried in the sun.

Nowadays California is the worlds largest grower of prunes, and the prized California Dried Plum (as they have been re-branded in America) was born when agriculturists brought the legendary Petite d’Agen plum from Southwest France to California during the Gold Rush and grafted it onto wild American plum stock.

The farming of prunes is a real labour of love. When growers plant a prune plum tree, they have a four to six year wait before they see their labours bear fruit. Even then, a tree needs 8 to 12 years in the ground before it reaches full production capacity of 150 to 300 pounds of raw fruit per year. At that point, an orchard can look forward to about three solid decades of commercial productivity, during which time it yields the fine-quality fruit that we import from California.

Prunes are used in cooking both sweet and savoury dishes, stewed prunes being a favourite desert for many. Rich in fibre, Prunes also have the highest anti-oxidant power of all fruit, even more than blueberries.