AN enterprising fruit grower hopes a personal visit to a Malvern store will boost sales of his juicy fruits.

Rob Simpson will be standing by his stocks of vintage crop apples at the Waitrose supermarket in Edith Walk next Wednesday, October 24, to help celebrate national apple day which takes place two days before.

He will answer customer questions and co-ordinate tastings from 10.30am to 12.30pm and will be advising shoppers as to what they should look for before buying the fruits.

"I'm really looking forward to the day," said Mr Simpson. "I hope it will boost the sale of apples which are especially tasty and juicy this year - a vintage crop."

Mr Simpson has been supplying apples from his Herefordshire orchards to the John Lewis Partnership, which owns the Waitrose stores, for the last 30 years.

He was delighted when he was asked to sell his wares to the Malvern supermarket when it opened three years ago.

"I love Malvern and will use my visit to encourage more people to buy wonderful British apples," said Mr Simpson, who reckons his apples taste so good because of the rich Herefordshire soil.

His best friend is the humble earthworm, which aerates the soil and improves its structure.

"The apples taste delicious because the soil is derived from old red sandstone and the orchards are irrigated from spring water which occurs naturally. If things carry on like this I will be able to expand my business further and employ more staff," added Mr Simpson, whose orchard is based at Upton Bishop.

"There's a bumper crop this year because of the warm wet weather. The apples will be bigger, redder and tastier this autumn."

Mr Simpson farms a 46-acre orchard where 72,000 apple trees produce Sunrise, Egremont Russet, Cox, and St Edmond's Pippin varieties. Mr Simpson sells more than 2.8 million apples a year.

He has state-of-the-art apple graders which take pictures of each apple to ensure quality, and the machine is so delicate you could put an egg through it without breaking, claims Mr Simpson.

To preserve the soil Mr Simpson uses light tractor-type machinery that has the same large tyres found on golf courses.