ORGANIC'S SALAD DAYS
As Scotland enjoys an organic food boom Louise Gray visits some of the country’s salad growers and producers to find out how they are keeping up with increased demand
Louise Gray discovers why the future is organic
Organic farming is leading a renewed interest in locally-sourced fruit and vegetables, such as freshly cut salad leaves. But can the burgeoning sector in Scotland keep up with demand?
Entering the polytunnels at East Coast Organics (ECO) is like stepping into summertime. Bees buzz lazily over a sea of green salads, from pak choi to purslane and pretty red mustard leaves. Workers dressed down in shorts and t-shirts steadily fill boxes full of crisp, green leaves.
The bags of salad will be loaded into electric vans and served at city dinner parties by tomorrow night. Mike Callender, the founder of ECO, based in Tranent outside Edinburgh, is enjoying a wave of interest in organic vegetables.
‘Consumers want to know where their food comes from,’ he says. ‘A veg box means they can source fresh fruit and veg from a local farm and the electric vans mean it has a lower carbon footprint.’
Like most organic farmers, Mike suffered a setback in 2008 when households hit by the recession stopped buying organic. But it looks like they are now willing to dig into their pockets once again with 2,000 bags of salad leaves sent out every week from these polytunnels over the summer.
According to the Soil Association, Scotland is enjoying an organic food boom, with sales growing at a rate of 19.4% last year, accounting for 6.5% of UK sales. Meanwhile, the number of growers and producers going organic has grown by 28% and Scottish independent retailers expect organic sales to maintain or increase in 2018.
Much of the increase in sales is due to veg box schemes that deliver seasonal fruit and veg once a week. The mainstay is salad leaves that can be grown all-year-round, and which compare well to supermarket-bought lettuce in taste and price. Mike thinks it is also because of concern about health and the environment. Organic fruit and vegetables are grown
without any synthetic fertilisers or pesticides. This means all the lettuce grown by ECO is fed on chicken manure or compost. The weeding, which is yet to be completed by the look of all the chickweed in the polytunnel, is done by hand.
Mike insists that growing vegetables slowly, as nature intended, makes them more nutritious. A recent study by the University of Newcastle did find evidence of more antioxidants in organic food, but the medical establishment does not necessarily agree that a healthy diet needs to include an organic element. Studies on whether pesticide residue on non-organic food is a significant danger to health remain inconclusive.
However, one thing is for sure: studies have shown that organic farms have significantly more wildlife. Organic farming allows more insects to live on farms, which helps sustain bird life. It also encourages mixed farming, thereby providing a range of habitats. The reduction in artificial nitrogen fertiliser can also mean less run-off in streams and less use of fossil fuels to transport and manufacture the chemicals. Organic production also fosters diversity in the variety of vegetables
grown on one farm – certainly when it comes to salad leaves.
Saladworx grows up to 100 varieties of salads in polytunnels in Dornoch, Sutherland. Michelle Bowley, the founder and director, says leaves can be grown all-year-round in Scotland without the use of chemicals, using hardy oriental or alpine varieties, fleece and polytunnels. When the company started in 2004, fresh salad was almost impossible to get hold of in the Highlands, but now it is available in every supermarket. Unlike organic, supermarket salad will be made up of four varieties at most and may have been treated with artificial pesticides. The larger producers in the UK are in Lincolnshire and we also import from the Netherlands and Spain.
The leaves can be picked with machines and will be washed with chlorinated water and packed in a factory. The bags of lettuce are then ‘gas flushed’ with carbon dioxide to push out oxygen and stop bacteria growing in the bag. The bag itself is perforated with tiny little holes to maintain the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
In comparison, Saladworx does not wash the salad and relies on local labour to hand-pick the leaves. Michelle claims it makes the salad more flavoursome and she must have a point as top chefs are using her salad leaves, including at Skibo Castle. ‘Customers are becoming more discerning,’ says Michelle, explaining that the ordinary shopper is also investing in organic salad leaves.
Pete Ritchie, the owner of Whitmuir Organic Farm outside Edinburgh, also grows salad leaves for an on-farm restaurant, shop and home delivery. He says interest in veg boxes is growing again as young people adopt vegetarian diets. But he points out that organic is still a tiny part of a wider picture, making up just over 1% of the UK food market. This, he says, won’t change until our attitude to food alters from one based on price to one based on quality and concern for the environment.
For Patricia Stephen of Phantassie in East Lothian, who grows salad for veg boxes and restaurants, organic farming is already influencing the wider farming community in Scotland. For example, swedes are now grown under fleece rather than using pesticides to keep off pests, and nitrogen-fixing peas are being grown as a break crop, rather than adding chemical fertilisers.
Organic may not ever become mainstream in Scotland, but with stricter controls on chemicals and greater concern about the environment, this ‘agro-ecology’ approach is taking off.
Unlike in the past when organic farming was about fashion, Patricia believes it is now about necessity as farmers realise the need to look after degraded soils. She insists younger people are turning to organic products like salad leaves, not just because they’re fresh and local, but to support a way of farming that protects the environment.
‘I am glad the froth is over,’ she says. ‘What is great about what is happening now is the next generation are going organic for the planet, not because of fashion.’
“Organic makes up just over 1% of the UK food market