New varieties from the islands are regularly introduced to leading UK supermarkets, where they have proved popular with consumers looking for something more than a red, round tomato.
Harmony Produce has grown the Jersey Jewel, a baby plum on-the-vine variety, for the Tesco Finest range since last year. The company previously supplied the Santa variety, which has since become popular across the UK supermarket spectrum.
The small Jersey producer supplies between 40,000 to 50,000 vines a week to Tesco from March to November, and the supermarket chain now makes up 99 per cent of its business.
“It is an achievement for such a small grower to be working with a retail giant like Tesco,” says Kevin Hervé, director of Harmony Produce.
“People have said that it is unwise to rely on one supermarket, but I see it in a totally different way. I have worked with Tesco for over 20 years, and I can trust them.
“Tesco supports local British produce, and will continue to do so.
“But you’d be surprised how many people don’t even know that Jersey is part of the UK,” he adds.
Jersey is the most southerly island of the British isles, located 100 miles south of mainland Britain and only 14 miles from France. It is often lighter and warmer than the rest of the UK, making it an ideal place for growers.
“Our nurseries on the east coast provide excellent conditions for growing tomatoes, as they are usually warm and light,” says Hervé. But the heavy fog that has settled over recent weeks has meant that the crop has not had as much light as usual for May, which has led to tomato shortages.
This has not affected the quality of the crop that has been supplied to Tesco, according to Hervé.
Wight Salads was the first mainland supplier to Tesco in 1983, a link that has continued to this day.
Now the largest tomato grower in the UK, the Wight Salads nurseries on the Isle of Wight specialises in the full-season production of speciality tomatoes, harvesting from February to November. The company also organises the final packaging and distribution for Harmony Produce.
Formed by the amalgamation of Arreton Valley Nursery Ltd, Bridgeguild Ltd, and Wight Salads Ltd last year, the Group’s members have been growing tomatoes for more than 30 years.
The company has 43 hectares of glass-house area in the UK, with an additional 6ha in Portugal and 4ha in Spain in order to provide its supermarket customers with fruit all year round.
“The company started out in the Lea Valley in 1974, with no capital and two thirds of an acre of rented glass,” says Alan Parker, a director of Wight Salads Group.
But the Isle of Wight was chosen as the main growing area in 1986 to take advantage of the best light available in the UK and the mild maritime climate, according to Parker. This has made for high-quality fruit throughout the season.
“The Isle of Wight was the worst place for a tomato grower back then, as there was a lot of competition,” Parker adds. “Then it was agreed that we would all sell at the same price and, overnight, it became the best place to be a tomato grower.”
New varieties of tomato including cherry, cocktail, beef and baby plum, as well as on-the-vine types, are grown commercially on site. There are also 300 different varieties on trial for possible future production.
Producing a total of two million plants each summer, Wight Salads sells 12,500 tonnes of conventional tomatoes and 2,500t of organic each year to UK supermarkets, as well as importing fruit from other countries to provide continuity of supply.
One of the ways to ensure consistent production would be to use lamps, according to Parker.
The Isle of Wight producer already has one hectare of lit tomato production, which uses artificial lights to increase the yield of tomatoes.
“We can’t afford not to expand lit production,” he says. “But we need to secure customer commitment before we can use more of it.”
The growers in Jersey and on the Isle of Wight have always been conscious of their environment, and this has allowed them to reduce energy costs while remaining environmentally friendly, according to Hervé.
Thermal screens save 37 per cent of energy at night at Wight Salads, at an initial cost of £50,000 per hectare. Seasonal polythene fixed screens also conserve 30 per cent of energy when in use, while computer programmes use weather forecasts to indicate when to heat the glasshouses more efficiently.
Finding tomato varieties that will grow better at lower temperatures will also lower energy costs, says Parker.
Similar measures have been adopted at Harmony Produce on a smaller scale, where, true to its name, the company continues to take the environment into consideration.
“For the last 10 years we have grown our produce according to the Gold Standard of Tesco’s Nature’s Choice pledge,” says Hervé. “This means that we must always consider the environment, recycling water and using natural pesticides, and also take into account staff welfare.” Wight Salads has also been a Tesco Nature’s Choice supplier since the scheme started in the early 1990s, and a Gold Standard producer since 1998.
Both Wight Salads and Harmony Produce use bugs and bees to control pests and pollinate their crop.
“I’m glad that high environmental standards such as Nature’s Choice, which were considered very environmentally-conscious a few years ago, are now the norm,” he adds.
The island tomato growers aim to produce premium British produce in order to stand out on the supermarket shelf.
“Tesco stocks a 500g value pack of tomatoes for 31p, and we are not trying to compete with that,” says Parker. Wight Salads also supplies tomatoes for the Finest range, where consumers look for quality.
“But what’s Finest today will not be Finest tomorrow,” Parker adds.
“We therefore have to constantly look for new products to keep ahead of the competition.”
“Supermarkets get a lot of bad publicity,” says Hervé. “There is a lot of pressure on them to compete with other supermarkets, and as a result it can be tough for growers.
“But it is difficult for all of us, and we are all in it together. I believe that supermarkets encourage growers to innovate, and they have to rely on each other. You can’t have one without the other.”
British growers have their name and photograph put on products sold in Tesco, an initiative that puts an emphasis on buying fresh UK fruit and vegetables.
Both Hervé and Parker appear on Tesco’s packaging for their tomatoes. By connecting the grower and the consumer, Tesco is establishing important links between British produce and the people who should buy it,” says Hervé.
“Tesco is conscious of putting more British produce on the shelves, and this is a trend that has really taken off in all major supermarkets. I regularly come from Jersey to see our produce on the shelves, and I always get good feedback from shoppers who are pleased to see local or British produce in stock.”
It is not easy for smaller producers to supply local produce to the supermarkets, according to Parker. “There are some fantastic opportunities for the supermarket giants if they, and the growers, could organise their logistics in a way that could accommodate both large and small growers to meet the demand for locally-grown produce,” he says.
Tesco has recently started to integrate organic produce with conventional types, so that customers will see them lined up on the same supermarket shelf rather than in separate sections. Following a small trial, which proved highly successful, the concept has now rolled out nationally.
Organic production is even riskier than conventional growing and, due to lower yields and higher costs of production, a 30-40 per cent premium is required to justify growing organically.
“Our customers demand organic tomatoes and that’s why we grow them,” says Parker. “The only things stopping more organics being sold are price, availability and quality.
“Sales are increasing every year in double figures, but there are only four or five organic tomato producers in the UK. The tomato market is alive and well.”
Tomatoes have had bad press in the past. Back in the 1990s the German press attacked Dutch produce, and the Dutch tomato industry had some catastrophic publicity, says Parker. “They were calling tomatoes ‘water bombs’,” he adds.
“This caused a major image problem for the industry, with consumers thinking that tomatoes were made in factories and were full of chemicals.
“That was what led to the introduction of tomatoes on the vine, an attempt to deliver a better-tasting fruit to the consumer, which also had the benefit of letting the customer experience the aroma of the tomato through the green parts of the plant. This can be very influential in how a product is perceived.
“This is also why the industry needed an innovation like the cherry, and cherry on the vine varieties, which we introduced to Tesco. People see the tomatoes on the vine and they know they are grown naturally, rather than created in a factory.”
Tomatoes are more popular today than they have been in the past, and consumers are becoming more aware of what is available, according to Hervé. “I believe that if the product is good, then the housewife will always pick it up,” he adds.
But more needs to be done to promote British tomatoes and raise public awareness, says Parker. “As an industry we are terrible at telling people what they are paying for and why they should pay a premium,” he adds.
Wight Salads supports the Tomato Growers’ Association campaign to encourage consumers to buy British.
Harmony Produce also backs this promotion through its connection to Wight Salads. “The British public love to see local produce on the shelves, and we must continue to supply top quality fruit from the islands,” adds Hervé.
“The Tomato Growers’ Association does a very good job of promoting tomatoes, particularly when it comes to informing people how healthy they are.
“But British people buy from all over the world, probably more than most other countries. I know from talking directly to consumers that they would prefer to buy British, and we must offer them more of the highest quality produce.
“There is still a very limited market for anything other than a round, red tomato. For three years, we grew a yellow cherry tomato for Tesco. But it seems that the British public can only understand tomatoes being red, and we need to use celebrity publicity to make sure that new and innovative varieties are properly accepted. After all, these are the tomatoes that will put the islands on the map.”
Parker adds: “This is one of the anomalies of the trade in that in a tasting at a show in-store, consumers are enormously impressed with what they eat, including yellows.
“Put them on the shelf and they do not sell. We must be missing the point somewhere.
“There is obviously a role for the traditional greengrocer in-store, to explain the virtues of new introductions, in much the same way as fishmongers do for products from the sea.”
Both Harmony Produce and Wight Salads will continue to develop new varieties, and they see innovation as the way forward for British tomatoes.
Harmony Produce will also continue to grow Heritage tomatoes in a small glasshouse containing between 2,000 and 3,000 plants.
“These varieties are tomatoes in all the colours of the world, in unbelievable shapes and sizes, and are full of character,” says Hervé. “They are separate to the tomatoes that we produce for Tesco, more of a hobby for us because we are interested in producing strange and beautiful tomatoes.”
The unusual varieties have names including Banana Legs, Whipper Snapper, Anna Russian and Liberty Bell. These are sold to wholesalers at Borough Market who supply to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, Mark Hix, chef director at Caprice Holdings, and other household names.
Hervé praises French seed company Terre de Semences, formally Association Kokopelli, where he sources the Heritage tomato seed.
“They have a chateau in France that is full of old tomato varieties, which grow in a garden that is open to the public,” he says.
“They do a wonderful job of preserving old varieties and raising awareness about tomatoes. I wish that everyone could see their gardens.
“But, for now, we must focus on continuing to produce excellent British tomatoes and encourage consumers to choose them.”
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