Why import blueberry when its Irish cousin is free?

THIS may be a foolish question, but it’s been prompted by a recent visit to the supermarket looking for blueberries and finding they had sold out.

Why do we have to import blueberries, now recognised as a fruit with many health benefits, when the blueberries’ cousin, the bilberry, grows wild in parts of the south-west, particularly in the acidic soil of boggy land.

As a child, I often spent part of the summer with my aunt in Co Kerry and I remember eating the “fraocain” that grew along country roadsides.