Apples are to go on sale in time for Halloween with pictures of witches and pumpkins lanterns embedded in the skin.

The apples - which have been harvested on farms in Kent - have had stencils stuck to the side of them.

By the time they have ripened and are ready to eat, the designs have grown on to the skin.

The fruit has been grown for supermarket chain Waitrose on the 100-acre Amsbury Farm in Hunton near Maidstone.

Apples are grown covered in bags

Clive Baxter, who owns the farm, produces eight million apples a year from 50,000 trees.

Gordon Fairbrother, the central fruit buyer for the store, said other shapes could be used for different occasions.

"The possibilities are endless," he said.

"There's no trick to these apples and they will definitely go down a treat at Halloween."

He suggested other shapes - such as hearts on Valentine's Day - would prove popular and he suggested it would be a good way to encourage children to eat more fruit.

Grinning pumpkin

The apples are grown inside a protective bag, which was put onto the fruit in May.

The fruit is then grown in the bag until harvest time in September.

Plastic stencils are then placed on the apples, which ripen naturally for another 10 days.

The ripening causes the apple's skin to redden where it is exposed to the sunlight - but when the crop is picked and the stencils removed, a grinning pumpkin or broomstick-bound witch is left imprinted on the skin.