La Serra Ltd

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.

Robert Farthing has been growing tomatoes for more than 16 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.

Robert and the team carefully nurture the crop, adjusting to its requirements daily, in order to maintain the premium quality tomatoes that we grow for you.

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.

Everything we do is about sustainable growing. At La Serra we are passionate about doing the right thing every step of the way to grow tomatoes that exceed expectations, our energy system is renewable as we strive to minimise our environmental impact.

“Everything we do is about sustainable growing; at La Serra we are passionate about doing the right thing every step of the way to grow tomatoes that exceed expectations”

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 tomatoes, we use rainwater collected from the greenhouse roofs and stored in a reservoir. 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 Francesca variety is a classic cherry tomato. A favourite snack for kids, it’s delicious raw or roasted on the vine.

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

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

• The Xylora is a cherry tom with a crisp texture and aromatic flavour. Vibrant and orange, 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 growbags that can be adjusted as needed.

Why? Because happy tomatoes are tasty tomatoes.

Visit website www.laserra.org.uk
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