They are the ultimate taste of summer, and thanks to the beast from the east and the spring heatwave, Scots are tucking into 6.5m extra ‘supersize’ strawberries.

The unusual weather conditions have meant there’s an unexpected glut of Scottish strawberries, said to be larger, sweeter and juicier than normal.

It’s led to a boost for shoppers, who are snapping up cut-price punnets of high quality fruit as supermarkets battle to clear the backlog and avoid stocks going to waste.

The Scottish strawberry season has been thrown into confusion by the cold snap at the start of the year which caused some varieties of berries to take longer to reach maturity.

Then, the recent hot conditions have sped up the ripening process for other varieties of strawberries – creating larger and juicier fruit much earlier in the season.

The unusual climate conditions have now sparked predictions of a bumper strawberry season.

However, the downside is that tonnes of Scottish berries which would normally ripen at different times, are hitting the market together - and clashing with the English strawberry season which is already underway.

The extra stock has caused supermarket prices to crash, meaning shoppers are picking up giant-sized punnets containing extra-large strawberries for a fraction of their normal cost.

In a bid to help suppliers tackle a massive surplus of stock, cut-price supermarket Aldi has now has stepped in to snap up more than 80 tonnes of Scottish strawberries.

The chain, which has started selling kilo-gram size ‘super-punnets’ at its Scottish stores, says the move is also intended to prevent fruit going to waste.

Julie Ashfield, managing director of Buying at Aldi UK, said: “The recent warm weather has led to our growers needing to harvest a vast amount of their crop much later than usual. We always try to find ways to support them in times like this, while at the same time reducing unnecessary food waste.

“Scottish strawberries are also typically brighter in colour and tastier compared with imported varieties, meaning our customers can enjoy more of the fruit at the best time of the year.”

The supermarket, which earlier this month struck a deal to buy 700,000 potatoes from a UK supplier faced with a bumper crop, is selling its larger strawberry punnets at £2.95 per kg in a bid to move stock as fast as possible.

Despite the over-supply, farmers are to receive the same rate per kilogram of fruit from Aldi as normal.

David Stephen of Barra Berries, Oldmeldrum near Inverurie, said any major over-supply of fruit is normally curtailed because of the controlled conditions in which berries are grown.

“There’s not usually a huge over-supply because fruit is grown in tunnels which means that to a large extent its protected from the elements.

“However, there’s always a slight problem if the English and Scottish crops pick up at the exact same time.”

Predictions of a bumper harvest have added to farmers’ concerns over attracting adequate numbers of workers to pick the crops.

Last week it emerged that a labour crisis has sparked concerns of crops rotting in fields and price rises for customers, with farmers forced to travel to Eastern Europe in search of temporary workers.

Some farmers are said to be paying for flights for teams of fruit-pickers from Bulgaria in a desperate move to avoid losing their crops.

Some have blamed the impact of Brexit, which they say has left workers from Bulgaria and Poland reluctant to travel to the UK to work.

There have also been claims that ‘gangmasters’ have been operating around some farms, intent on luring fruit-pickers to rival fields.

Producers have called for the reinstatement of the UK Government’s seasonal agricultural workers’ scheme, which would allow non-EU residents to work temporarily in Britain in farming-related roles.

Production of strawberries and raspberries in Scotland has nearly doubled over the past decade, mostly driven by strawberry sales.

Thanks to polytunnels and new varieties of strawberries which have been developed to give improved flavour, appearance, longevity, yield and shelf life, fruit farmers are able to stretch what used to be a brief berry season, to last from May - and sometimes earlier - through to October. They now produce around 25,000 tonnes of strawberries each year.

Geoff Bruce, of Bruce Farms in Meigle, Perthshire, which supplies soft fruit for Scotty Brand, said the season has already produced impressive yields of particularly succulent and sweet strawberries.

“It’s down to the weather, but to be honest we’re so busy I can hardly remember what the weather was like yesterday, never mind a few weeks ago.

“There are always good bits and less good bits in every season. It’s a long season and we have to just hope it continues like this.”

The Scottish soft fruit industry, mostly based in Tayside and Fife, is worth £100m a year.