What your mango says about you

For British Asian households, mangoes are a matter of territorial pride. My family, who have Indian heritage, are fierce advocates of the country’s Alphonso variety, while Pakistani friends would wax lyrical about their Chaunsa fruit and east Asians would swear by the oblong Thai Nam Dok Mai for dicing into sticky rice.

This year, however, mango season hasn’t been a time for celebration. “It’s been a perfect storm,” Satya Morarji, co-founder of British delivery business Alphonso Mango, tells me. “Temperatures were a lot lower for longer in the mango growing regions at the start of the year, which means supply was delayed by a month. Then, the Middle East crisis caused freight prices to go through the roof. Plus, the hot summer in the UK has resulted in the fruit ripening so fast that sometimes we can’t even send it out before spoiling.”

Read the feature in the Observer.

[This piece was published on 25/07/26]