Specialist glasshouse growers Stubbins Marketing have begun the production of UK okra and baby aubergines for supply to Asda.
The products are being grown at their development nursery in Waltham Abbey, adding to the company’s staple offer of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.
Crops progressed well during the spring helped by excellent natural light and temperature levels and first harvests and supply of loose product to five of Asda’s London stores commenced in mid June.
The crops continue to be grown using biological systems throughout their production to give residue free fruit which is in line with all other crops at the Waltham Abbey nursery.
“When we were first challenged by customers to grow exotic fruit and vegetables, our minds raced. We thought of coconuts, pineapples, yams, and casava and had visions of palm fringed beaches which would make ideal growing sites! There was no shortage of volunteers for this project,” said technical director Andrew Haycock.
“In discussion it soon became clear that the range of products we believed we could grow commercially in the UK was very restricted. We decided on okra and baby aubergines because they are both relatively quick growing and can be produced using both soilless culture techniques and biological pest and disease control. We set to work to increase our knowledge from around the world of growing techniques and variety choices and this information was then adapted for production as a UK glasshouse crop. But in reality we knew we would obtain most of our knowledge from hands on experience after planting and this has certainly proved to be the case.”
Reaction is said to have been very positive from stores and consumers and Stubbins hopes the environmental appeal of exotic products with fewer ‘food miles’ will attract consumers to the produce.
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