Trial volumes of tiny pear Bambinella at Marks & Spencer this summer have given Maltese growers hope that they can revive their horticultural exports to the UK, freshinfo.com reported.

The trial was run in conjunction with Worldwide Fruit Ltd, which sourced the fruit from Malta’s Ta’Qali Producers Group, which is in the process of becoming the island’s first producer organisation.

Bambinella is one of the smallest pear varieties grown, with fruit the size of a large cherry and high brix levels. The pear’s blushed skin turns from green to yellow to carmine.

Peter Axisa, TPG’s chairman and chief executive, is working with Carmelo Briffa, the agriculture officer in charge of the government’s propagation nursery, to increase the number of trees available.

Axisa, a former secretary general of the Maltese Farmers’ Association, became a special advisor to the prime minister in 2003 when Malta applied for EU membership, which it was granted in 2004.

Briffa is also testing rootstocks to exploit the potential for cherry and apple production, as well as developing modern varieties for an established but limited peach and nectarine industry.

Bambinella will also be grown in the UK for the first time next year and the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale already has two trees in its orchards.

M&S’s decision “could not have come at a better time”, according to WFL technical director Tony Harding. “Growers need all the encouragement we can give them, and it will help build up the membership of TPG,” he said.

Since its formation in 2005, the organisation has expanded rapidly, from 87 members to 300, with a target of 500 when the group applies for full PO status in the next three years.

TPG has set up its own packing and grading operation with government backing on the edge of the island’s wholesale market, near Rabat. Produce is delivered every night, paid for according to quality and sold not just through this outlet, but also directly to secondary wholesalers and through a modern retail shop on the same premises.

Axisa believes that TPG will eventually fulfil the dual role of exporting and raising awareness of the value of local produce.

Joseph Farrugia, TPG director secretary, estimates that there are around 1,500 full-time growers out of a total of 10,000 in Malta. “A PO is the only way we can organise the market, and give our growers the discipline to compete with imports,” he added.