The high-security hanger just yards from the runway of the Kandahar Air Field must be one of the most unusual outposts of the international grocery trade anywhere in the world.

Normally, the cavernous structure at this strategically important military base in Afghanistan holds stores and equipment used by the international forces attempting to subdue the resurgent Taliban in the southern province. But last Autumn it was receiving shipments of pomegranates on enormous flatbed trucks.