Watercress enjoyed another stint in the limelight last week as industry insiders, celebrities and consumers alike pledged their support in a number of ways for the third annual Watercress Week. Celebrations got under way on Sunday, May 14, as a record 8,000 visitors turned out for The Watercress Festival in Alresford, Hampshire.
Revellers enjoyed the green leaf in various guises while helping to raise more than £4,000 for Lynn Faulds Wood’s Bowel Cancer Campaign.
Some unfavourable weather conditions earlier in the year sparked concerns among producers in the run up to the festival, which heralds the start of the main UK watercress season. “It was a late spring, which affects all the production,” says Charles Barter, managing director of one of the top three UK producers, The Watercress Company. “All the seasons are changing. We don’t get an autumn, have a later winter and spring seems to be getting later and later as well. March and April are not good growing months anymore. We don’t get the usual spring sun and showers and instead late frosts are now common.”
However, despite the increasingly delayed start to harvesting, some warm rain in the days before the festival meant production was in full swing in time for the highlight of the watercress calendar. And quality and availability of production has been superb, says Barter: “There will, of course, be some fluctuations from week to week depending on the weather, but we should see full supplies of UK watercress all the way through the summer now, possibly until mid-November,” he says.
Vitacress has embarked on a “24 hour initiative” to optimise the freshness of its products, says production and technical director Steve Rothwell. “We are cutting in the morning, washing, packing and delivering it to get it into store in the same day,” he says. Sainsburys has also been running an in-store promotion, announcing a pledge of 5p to Faulds Wood’s charity for every pack sold.
After a progressively worrying slump in sales of watercress in line with salads in general, in the last three years watercress producers have seen interest in their product return to much healthier levels. “We are seeing very good growth of 20 per cent plus year-on-year across the pack range, as a solo product and as a component mixed in with other salads,” says Rothwell. “Its sales are growing well ahead of the rest of salad packs, which are on less than five per cent growth.”
The renewed interest in watercress is undoubtedly due, in large part, to the ongoing promotional activity commissioned by the Watercress Alliance - an organisation consisting of The Watercress Company, Vitacress and Geest, who together assume the biggest stake in the industry. Rothwell, however, says the product is something of a British institution and pretty much sells itself, as people become more and more concerned with the functionality of foods.
Not only is watercress packed with essential vitamins and minerals, but it also contains a phytochemical called phenylethyl isothiocyanate, or PEITC, which denotes its distinctive peppery taste, and has been shown to have a range of anti-cancer properties. In fact, the Watercress Alliance is hoping soon to have concrete evidence to further support this theory as the two-year dietary intervention study it funded to explore links between watercress consumption and colorectal cancer prevention, performed by Ulster university, approaches expiration date. “It is showing some very exciting results,” says Rothwell. “The study has been accepted for publication, while a longer piece of work is still undergoing peer review.”
These health benefits aside, watercress has a cheerier story to tell than some products for other reasons, says Rothwell: “It is quite a quirky product and it has got an interesting history. It is grown in pure flowing water and is grown the same way today as it was hundreds of years ago, whereas lettuce, for instance, didn’t exist all those years ago.” Barter adds, in agreement: “If the Romans and Greeks came back today it is probably the only product they would recognise.”
Innovation has become one of the most bandied about buzzwords of the moment in fresh produce. But watercress producers seem to be largely bucking the trend in their belief that rather than pouring all their efforts into R&D, turning consumers onto the product requires little more than demonstrating its already existing properties. “We tend to leave it alone,” says Rothwell. “It pretty much does what we want it to. It is well-adapted, it grows very quickly in pure, flowing water and has a good image.”
Barter says while other sectors look to the principal seed companies to introduce new strains, watercress producers manage their own seed production and have not made any significant changes, as individuals, since the 1980s. “There has been a certain amount of breeding by selection, not via any convoluted way of selecting, but for things like colour, leaf shape, late-flowering and shelf life, as much as possible,” he explains. “The industry came upon the current strains of the variety about 20 years ago when a lot of work was done and now it is pretty much stable. Each grower produces his own seed and just continues the strain - but the consumer wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between one grower’s production and the next, it is all pretty standard.”
As with most lines of fresh produce, consolidation has seen some smaller watercress growers fall by the wayside, leaving the Watercress Alliance responsible for 80 per cent of UK production and the majority of the rest accumulated from four other principle growers. However, Barter says the rise in demand for watercress across the board can only spell good news for all remaining producers. “Obviously, you have to have large volumes to work with the multiples but I think the situation has stabilised for the smaller growers. It is easier for them on the catering and wholesale side of things now that we have turned sales around.”
While UK producers are delighted at the resumed interest in watercress, the step up in demand is something of a double-edged sword for a country that is significantly limited in its production capacity. “In order to meet demand the Watercress Company is having to bring in more and more Spanish, Portugese and even Florida watercress to supplement supplies,” says Rothwell. “UK production is finite. Most beds are at least 100-years old: they are very expensive to build and need large quantities of pure spring water which are not always available in this ever-drying age. In the 1940s and 1950s, the UK devoted more than 1,000 acres to watercress production. Now it is less than 150a.”
Overseas production developed in the early 1980s and in the last couple of years the industry has had to extend the import season beyond the dead of winter to prop up the increase in demand for UK produce. However, the increasing presence of one particular source is causing alarm for the key UK players. “We are seeing more and more French watercress, predominantly to the wholesale market and, I believe, to the major multiples as well,” says Rothwell. “Obviously, it is a fair world and we expect to face competition but they don’t subscribe to the same specifications as us and our affiliated producers overseas. They use surface water rather than spring water, which is prone to contamination.”
Rothwell says the seven members of the NFU Watercress Association, which account for 95 per cent of UK production, fear this issue could serve to undermine all of the industry’s efforts to communicate an assurance of quality and safety in association with UK watercress. “We have spent a lot of time as an industry appealing to the FSA but there are no statutory requirements to meet our specifications,” he claims. “But it is watercress that will get the hit, not the specific vendor. Unfortunately we are not getting very far with the FSA. We must be the only industry asking government to regulate! But when you do ask, it is all too much trouble. We have got a positive dialogue going with the FSA but progress is measured in years, not months.”
Thanks to the combined force of the alliance, watercress has been able to plough its own furrow. It is unique in being led by such a dedicated and united front, with the capacity to invest in a six-figure promotional campaign, although the Watercress triumvirate has since inspired other salad growers to follow suit in forming an alliance.
Watercress was also the first UK salad line to secure Assured Produce status. However, Rothwell now fears watercress will be lumped together with other bagged salads, which have come under fire in the media lately, following accusations of unregulated chemical secretions in the water used to clean the products. “The packed salad producers have engaged the same PR people as us but they seem to have to spend all their time defending bagged salads, rather than promoting them,” he says.
While some UK producers have dedicated areas to organic production, since the initial surge in demand around five years ago, uptake has steadied significantly. Rothwell believes this is because consumers recognise the very marginal gap between conventional and organic methods of producing watercress - a point he feels works significantly in its favour. “Conventional watercress is as close to an organic product as you can get without the official certification,” he explains. “The only difference is we use some artificial fertilisers to supplement growth.”
Barter believes it is the concept of purity and tradition associated with watercress which makes it such a national institution and explains why so many people turned out in force to mark its significance last week in Alresford in Hampshire - the so-called “watercress capital of the world”. “There are a number of pure water springs around the south coast, which is why so many watercress farms sprang up around that area,” he says. “There are fewer than there used to be but there are still 10 farms just around Alresford which isn’t bad.”
With its unusually large main street, Alresford provides an apt and pretty location for the assembly of stalls and the stage, which make up the Watercress Festival. This year, the streets were crammed to bursting point as people gathered to watch celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson demonstrate the versatility of the product and help judge entries in the Watercress Festival Food Awards, along with the editor of BBC Good Food magazine, Gillian Carter. Waitrose’s online retail service Ocado took home the prize for most innovative product, for its fruity, watercress smoothies, while Alresford’s Pizza Express won Best Watercress International Dish for its Pingleston pizza, which has become a local favourite and permanent fixture on the menu since it was inspired by last year’s festival awards.
And if the photos are anything to go by, visitors entered into the spirit of the occasion with great gusto, not only by eating the unusual fare but also by doing their best to blend in with the watercress on show. “We had around 5,000 people last year and the town council was really overwhelmed - we sold out of everything really quickly,” Rothwell recalls. “This year everyone in the town really got behind it. It’s the heart of watercress country, and they realise it is very good for their image.” Barter agrees, highlighting the fundamental value of having such a landmark in the calendar devoted to watercress. “It was a fantastic day this year. The weather was absolutely ideal - not too hot but just warm enough to divert people away from the beach - the perfect way to start the season.”
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