Many UK tomato producers are anticipating a similar start date to 2009 for this year’s campaign and although plants endured poor light levels at the start of the year, favourable early spring weather has boosted optimism in the sector.
“The weather has been better this month and a sunny day in March is equivalent to two in January,” says Gerry Hayman, executive officer of the British Tomato Growers’ Association (TGA).
Sources say there could be a shortage of imported tomatoes in early April and this should be good news for UK growers.
“It’s going to be interesting at the start of the season, especially as the imported season has been challenging, particularly for the Canary Islands and Spain, which endured awful weather,” Hayman tells FPJ.
Acreage is higher than last year, with some growers increasing their production.
“If the law of supply and demand still applies, British fruit should meet strong demand and hopefully growers will get the prices they deserve,” Hayman says.
“A few growers delayed their crops last year due to the higher energy costs but they regretted it, as they missed out on early-season demand. However, energy costs are better this year.”
Thanet Earth in Kent harvests tomatoes year round and is expecting a fairly seamless shift from winter to summer production. “While light levels will be the biggest variable affecting the official start of the season for traditional unlit crops, we expect good volumes from the outset,” says Paul Frowde, tomato commercial manager at Thanet Earth Marketing Ltd. Thanet says it is seeing consistently high demand for British tomatoes from its customers, and “extremely positive” feedback on its first season of winter production is generating further interest in its unlit season.
During the winter, Thanet grows five varieties and increases its range during the summer months. “We grow more varieties, from Piccolo to baby plum, cocktail and other speciality lines, and there is considerable demand for UK-grown and, in particular, locally grown food - there is room in the market for good-quality British producers,” explains Frowde.
“Kaaij UK at Thanet Earth is probably most notable for bringing together best practice across all aspects of production - excellence not only in varieties and offer, but also in technology and environmental considerations. Our involvement with supplier companies in trials keeps us progressing forward each year.”
Thanet recently developed some innovative packaging that contains information about its environmental credentials. “This will be used at wholesale and is in trial at retail now too,” Frowde tells FPJ.
Investment also continues in Thanet Earth’s website, which attracts an average of more than 6,000 visitors each month, and proceedings can also be followed on Twitter. The group has an average of three community talks booked each month until the end of 2011.
“All this activity adds up to help consumers connect with us as a brand and to understand how we operate,” Frowde says. “We hope that by investing our time in this way we are not only benefiting ourselves, but we are building better awareness of issues in the protected crops industry.”
Energy remains the major issue in the tomato sector, both in terms of its cost and the political and environmental issues surrounding its use, says Hayman. However, he adds that there are fantastic opportunities to use the surplus or ‘waste’ energy streams from industrial processes or electricity generation.
British Sugar’s Cornerways Nursery development, which uses heat and CO2 from the adjacent refinery to produce tomatoes, and John Jones’s project in Hertfordshire, which provides power, heat and CO2 from microturbines fuelled by biogas from the anaerobic digestion of waste vegetables, are two shining examples.
“We need help and joined-up thinking from central and local government to promote such developments by bringing together interested parties, providing encouragement and maybe even financial support for research and investment and facilitating the planning process,” says Hayman.
British Tomato Week offers considerable opportunities for the industry to showcase itself. Promotions will take place on 17-23 May and will continue to highlight all that British tomatoes have to offer.
“The industry has continued to focus on flavour, freshness, nutritional value, product range, security of supply and integrated control of pests and diseases, with minimal or zero pesticide usage,” Hayman says.
The TGA is considering ideas to promote the benefits of eating tomatoes in relation to cardiovascular health. It is also exploring a potential link with the Food Dudes campaign with regards to developing its educational website, www.thetomatozone.co.uk
As well as British Tomato Week, the TGA will attend a number of shows and exhibitions, including the BBC Summer Good Food Show held in Birmingham on 16-20 June and its Tastiest Tomato competitions.
Growers argue that support from the retailers would also help to get key messages across.
“In-store messages, information on packs, positive media exposure and websites are important and will help to ensure we are maintaining our profile,” says grower Chris Wall of Eric Wall Ltd. “The industry has to remain commercially viable and to achieve this, British product needs to be first choice with the consumer. We need to ensure freshness, flavour and variety of offer.”
Meanwhile, the new tomato varieties introduced to the UK in the last few years have boosted sales. Diversification began in the late 1990s, when Enza Zaden introduced its cocktail variety Aranca, according to the firm’s technical sales representative, Jonathan Barker.
“During this period of diversification, there was a boost in tomato sales following the introduction of new types such as cocktails, and then mini plum and truss cherry types,” Barker explains. “These allowed tomatoes to be used in different ways, in particular for snacking and also for the inclusion of small whole types in prepared packs.”
Enza Zaden continues to experiment with new varieties and Barker says the recently introduced variety Annamay is a worthy successor to Aranca. “This is an excellent-flavoured 40g fruit and it has a very attractive, compact truss shape, with high early and overall yields,” he tells FPJ.
Other new varieties include Pureza, which provides very high yields and weighs in at 90-100g.
In terms of cherry tomatoes, Piccolo dominates the UK market. However, Enza Zaden believes its new variety Amoah offers higher yields and larger fruit size, with “superb flavour” and deep-red, shiny fruits. “Unusually for a cherry tomato, it comes with an intermediate level resistance to powdery mildew,” Barker says.
E22.33539 is Enza Zaden’s newest introduction to its Sunstream range. Demand for this loose tomato, which has a high level resistance to Cladosporium, is increasing every year.
In recent years, Enza Zaden says it has been at the forefront of improving flavour in tomatoes. Taste is obviously a priority, but Barker insists that it is also important to focus on the reliability of the varieties from the perspective of growers, traders and retailers. “The current economic climate gives the challenge of breeding varieties specifically with improved yields, shelf life and disease resistance, while maintaining flavour,” he adds.
According to Barker, UK tomato growers are well aware of the long-term importance of added value in their choice and development of varieties. “Along with our mainstream breeding, Enza Zaden will continue the innovative breeding programmes in northern and southern Europe that are required to produce these niche varieties, and we must never forget that today’s niche can be tomorrow’s commodity,” Barker says.
As the season gets underway, growers have expressed concern about the Tuta absoluta pest, which has quickly become the number-one pest in tomatoes in several Mediterranean countries.
“Tuta absoluta is one of the best examples of where a fully integrated pest management (IPM) approach is needed to keep pest levels below the damage threshold - i.e. prevention, netting, trapping, beneficials, biopesticides and chemicals,” says Ward Stepman, European sales and marketing manager for BCP Certis.
According to Stepman, the best approach to limit damage remains preventing Tuta absoluta from entering the crop in the first place and by limiting build-up by using pheromone traps.
Field trials in Spain and France have shown that the best control is achieved by having a good population of mirid bugs, which are voracious predators of both the eggs and larvae. “The best way to achieve a good mirid bug population is to introduce early and to feed with Eggsure,” says Stepman.
A more recent development is the use of egg parasitoids and introducing relatively high rates of Trichogramma achaeae has been shown to significantly reduce the number of eggs hatching.
“More work is needed to fully understand the potential of this new beneficial,” says Stepman. “Releases in the UK and some other European countries will require a release license.”
In these competitive times, few sectors stand still and the tomato industry is no exception.
According to Kevin Doran, managing director of Greenery UK, which has begun marketing produce from Yorkshire-based John Baarda Ltd, producers need to focus on cost containment, as well as achieving yields that are competitive with other exporting nations.
“The cold reality is simple,” Doran says. “Imported product sets the price level that retailers are exposed to, and if the UK grower is doing anything within their operation that is inconsistent with the profile of producer regions they compete with, they will have a serious financial disadvantage.”
However, Doran says that the UK has some of the best growers he has worked with anywhere in the world, but they are often put in circumstances that create challenges for them that others do not experience.
“A good example would be growing eight to 10 different varieties in a 25-acre greenhouse and then having to compete with producers abroad who would have only one in that same size glasshouse,” Doran explains. “We do not produce enough domestically to meet UK demand, and there is certainly room for more local supply - as long as the economics of growing in the UK are problematic as a result of these differences, capital investment will continue to be restricted.”
With hopes for a fruitful season, producers say they have to capitalise on demand for home-grown product to strengthen the industry. “Opportunities really revolve around the demand for British and local food, and food with sound provenance,” Frowde says. “If the industry can capitalise on this, we should all benefit from better awareness and demand.
“In our opinion, if growers can stay connected with consumers and be flexible in their response, then that has to be the key to safeguarding their own business and the industry at large. We need to keep innovating too - with investment and continual development we can stay agile and able to compete on all fronts in a very pressured world market.”
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