Katie Herring is sales and marketing manager at Cultivate

SUMMER produce really brings a rainbow of colours to our shelves.

At the moment we have brilliant red cabbages, shiny purple aubergines, verdant green beans, rosy red cherry tomatoes and sunshine yellow patty pans, brightening up the vegan and our market stalls.

This colourful time of year makes creating eye-catching displays a real delight.

We even had passer by stop dead in her tracks to admire and purchase some of our Isle of Wight cherry tomatoes the other week at our Headington market stall.

The psychology of colour on eating habits and purchasing behaviour is a topic that has been well researched.

We’re probably all familiar with the fact that there are very few naturally occurring blue foods, even blueberries are more of an indigo colour than true blue.

That’s because blue is a natural appetite suppressant.

Our ancestors recognised blue, purple, and black plants to be a warning of a potentially lethal food.

The colour of food can tap into our natural instincts and when a familiar food appears to be a different colour it often raises suspicion.

Some people advocate eating a rainbow of food to improve health, although the British Heart Foundations says 'there’s no evidence that eating a balance of colours leads to a balance in nutritional content', so it's important just to get variety in types of food rather than just colour.

But having said that, the natural compounds (phytochemicals) that give fruit and vegetables their colour may be beneficial.

Foods such as tomatoes get their red colour from lycopene which is thought to have antioxidant properties and which has been reported to help reduce blood pressure and cholesterol.

Beta-carotene which is responsible for giving yellow and orange fruits and vegetables their colour is converted to vitamin A in the body and helps us make hormones and keeps our eyes healthy.

Unfortunately many foods have artificial colourings added to improve our perception, tricking us into buying tasteless food.

Luckily, as we only source ecologically and organically at Cultivate, you can be sure our produce is free from artificial enhancement and when you get a brilliant orange carrot it's going to taste like one too.