Former boss of Hampshire Watercress and Vitacress Sales launched UK’s first pre-packed salad and persuaded M&S to run its first-ever TV advert for food
Malcolm Issac MBE, a leading figure in the British watercress industry and a pioneer of supermarket pre-packed salads, has died.
Isaac’s involvement in watercress began in 1951 when he took on an acre of beds just outside New Alresford in Hampshire.
Those were testing times for watercress growers due to fungal root disease, but Isaac successfully adopted new cultivation methods that saw his crops thrive. By 1960, his business Hampshire Watercress was one of the country’s leading producers.
Through the acquisition of Vitacress, Isaac became a part-owner, and soon MD, of Vitacress Sales, the company’s wholesale trading concern.
He successfully expanded and drove the business to greater profitability. However, the emergence of the supermarket chains at this time posed a threat to his wholesaling empire.
Shrewdly, Isaac chose to embrace the challenge and invested heavily to serve the major retailers. In 1967, he launched the UK’s first pre-packed salad – watercress, of course.
By the late 1970s, Hampshire Watercress supplied all the UK multiples. Demand for watercress began to exceed supply, especially in winter, so Isaac decided on the Algarve in Portugal as an overseas supply base. In 1980, he established Vitacress Agricultura Intensiva.
With a strengthened supply base, Isaac was able to drive watercress sales with confidence, even persuading M&S to run its first-ever TV advert for food in 1984 – for watercress. Soon after, annual sales of watercress topped 2,000 tonnes.
In 1988, Isaac decided to broaden the scope of the business and pioneered baby leaf salads, alongside rocket and ready-to-eat baby spinach.
Through investment, and the purchase of a producer called Jeffs and Foot (renamed Iberian Salads in 1989), he added high-value prepared vegetables to the range, including fresh garden peas, another UK first.
Soon after, Vitacress Kenya was created, initially to supply these products year-round.
By the 1990s, Isaac had transformed a one-acre watercress farm into a multi-national business comprising 14 farms and factories in the UK, Portugal and Kenya, together with strategic alliances in Spain and the US.
His achievements were recognised with a National Agricultural Award from the Royal Agricultural Society in 1999 and an MBE in 2004.
In 2008, aged almost 80, Isaac sold Vitacress to the Portuguese company Grupo RAR, but rather than enjoy a quiet retirement, he took on a brand-new challenge.
Recognising the opportunities that global warming offers for wine production in the chalk hills of the South Downs – to the detriment of the Champagne region in France – Isaac acquired Exton Park Vineyard. Under his leadership, the business has become a leading producer of fine sparkling wines.
Dr Steve Rothwell, now an advisor to Vitacress, said: “I had the privilege of knowing Malcolm for over 40 years, when as a fervent supporter of technical innovation, he part-funded my PhD back in 1980.
“Since then, I have enjoyed his unerring support in the development and implementation of many firsts for the industry. He was a man of great vision, utter integrity, and iron-willed determination.
“His mantra was ‘high value, low volume, high perishability’, and he followed that ethos in the transformation of watercress from a humble staple to a premium superfood, and the creation of what is now the baby leaf salads sector.
“Despite his passion for the business, Malcolm always maintained a healthy enthusiasm for his shooting and fishing. I recall many a May board meeting coming to an abrupt halt as Malcolm stuffed his papers into his battered brief case with the words ‘well, the flies are rising’, and he was off to the tranquillity of the river.”
Isaac’s contribution to the development and success of the UK watercress industry cannot be underestimated and his enthusiasm and drive will be sorely missed.
