La Serra Ltd
Nick Arnst

It’s thanks to the hard work and dedication of growers across the country that we’re able to celebrate British tomato season with so many delicious varieties each year.

Meet some of the growers working to keep shops and shelves well-stocked.

Nick Arnst has been growing tomatoes for more than 10 years. He’s in charge of growing at Worcestershire-based La Serra, where up to 100 tonnes of tomatoes are hand selected and packed every week.

Growing tomatoes in Britain, for British customers means we’re able to keep our tomatoes on the vine for longer, so when they reach your plate they’re bursting with extra flavour and nutrition. Minimising the time between picking and eating is key.

Sustainability isn’t just important to us, it’s an essential part of our tomato farm in the Vale of Evesham. Our growing process is a state of the art, self-sufficient cycle, and at every stage we harness renewable energy to ensure our impact on the environment is minimal.

“Our growing process is a state of the art, self-sufficient cycle, and at every stage we harness renewable energy to ensure our impact on the environment is minimal.”

We harvest sunlight in a 40-hectare solar farm, which provides energy for our anaerobic digestion plants. Also known as AD plants, these amazing facilities allow us to break down biodegradable material to create environmentally friendly gases. These natural gases in turn power the greenhouses where we grow our tomatoes.

To nourish the toms, we use rainwater collected and stored in the greenhouse roofs. If there’s any crop left over after harvesting, we put it back into the AD plants to help us generate more green gas – and round and round we go.

The system is one of the most advanced in Europe and enables us to grow delicious, fresh tomatoes all year round. Despite all our high-tech equipment, tomato growing remains as much an art as a science.

Passion (some would say obsession) to deliver the best quality tomatoes runs through the entire team at our family-run business. We grow four varieties of toms, picked for taste and versatility:

• The Piccolo is a classic cherry tomato. A favourite snack for kids, it’s delicious raw or roasted on the vine

• Large and tasty, the roterno is equally at home in a fresh salad as a cheese and tomato sandwich

• The arlinta is a multi-purpose kitchen hero, great whether fried in a pan or roasted over a BBQ

• The yelorita is a cherry tom with a crisp texture and aromatic flavour. Vibrant and yellow, it brightens up any salad

We do everything we can to provide our tomato plants with just the right amounts of water, food, warmth and light, all year-round. This includes two different systems to give them both a continuous supply of fresh water and nutrients to their roots, as well as a supply into the soil that can be adjusted as needed.

Why? Because happy tomatoes are tasty tomatoes.

Visit website www.laserra.org.uk
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