Grown in the sunny south east by Horeswood Nurseries Ltd. – one of Ireland’s largest and longest-established commercial tomato growers – Wexford Tomatoes are renowned island-wide for their incredible taste and stocked by leading multiples including Tesco, Dunnes Stores, Super Valu and Centra. We travelled to New Ross and met up with MD Matt Wallace to find out more about this exceptional operation.
Specialists in producing consistently high-quality vine and plum vine tomatoes, Horeswood Nurseries produce over 1,000 tonnes of produce annually for the main Irish and Ireland-based UK multiples. The company’s facilities encompass two hectares of tomatoes under glass, in state-of-the-art commercial greenhouse units with integrated packing and transportation facilities.
Established in 1969, Horeswood Nurseries is an An Bord Bia-approved supplier, consistently producing tomatoes to meet the exacting quality standards demanded by its customers. Twice a national award winner in the Bord Glas / An Bord Bia Horticultural Quality Assurance Scheme (protected crops sector), the business is owned by managing director Matt Wallace.
Matt’s family have grown tomatoes in Wexford for over seventy years, spanning two generations, culminating in a wealth of experience that enables him to consistently produce high-quality, great-tasting tomatoes. A qualified commercial horticulturist, Matt is passionate about developing Wexford Tomatoes in a sustainable manner and is continually investing in new ways to advance the business.
The team have a background in growing fresh produce and is likewise committed to ensuring that Wexford Tomatoes are grown using sustainable farming principles. There are a dedicated team of ten full-time employees who tend to the different varieties of Wexford Tomato plants throughout the year, with the team increasing to over 20 during peak growing season. The team works closely with customers to ensure that produce never has too far to travel to reach the consumer, thus assuring a low carbon footprint whilst safeguarding the delicious flavour of Wexford Tomatoes.
Reflecting on the origins of the proud family tradition of growing tomatoes, Matt notes: “My dad, Matt Snr. and his brothers Paddy and Simon had started on a different site in 1942/43. Dad also started here on this site in 1969 and I came home from college in 1971 and developed the business from there.”
There were 4,000 square metres of glass at that time and Matt has since increased this to 20,000 square metres as part of a continuous programme of expansion and improvement. The original houses from ’69 were replaced in 2004; the latest state-of-the-art glasshouse was added in 2008.
“The old houses were two metres high and the new ones are up to three times that. As houses become more modern, you move with the times, but you don’t replace them unless there are advantages to it,” adds Matt, who served as chairman of the Quality Green Producer Organisation two years ago (representing the majority of commercial tomato growers in Ireland).
Although in order to reduce their carbon footprint they decided to install a Biomass Boiler to use woodchip instead of oil in 2014.
Maintaining the highest quality is paramount and no stone is left unturned in the relentless pursuit of consistent excellence. “Everybody has responsibility for quality, from the beginning of the crop to the end, and it is our responsibility to ensure that there is quality along the entire chain. We have 23 people here and it’s everybody’s responsibility to maintain the highest standards.”
The work is labour intensive and it’s a six-days-per-week operation during harvest season, from April until November. “The plants don’t know when it’s a Bank Holiday,” Matt quips. Come December, the houses are cleared out and new plants go in, sourced from a specialist propagator in Holland. Matt grows four prominent varieties and, in conjunction with this, also tries out three or four new ones each year to see how they perform.
“We’ve been supplying the multiples for more than 20 years now,” he comments. “It was a big change moving from wholesale to supplying the multiples because they obviously have very exacting standards. We do all the packing here ourselves and the tomatoes then go to Total Produce in Swords en route to Dunnes, Tesco and Super Valu. Our tomatoes are on the shelves in store within two days of being harvested.”
Having mastered the art of producing fresh and tasty tomatoes, the next challenge is to somehow keep unlocking more and more efficiencies: “That has been a continuous process,” Matt confirms. “You watch your inputs and try to maximise your outputs. You have to persevere with it all the time – techniques for growing are constantly evolving and you have to embrace these changes. Since I started, we have doubled our output and have reduced our labour and our energy usage, so we are much more efficient now whilst also producing a better product with better taste.”
Taste. The key component of Wexford Tomatoes. “Our emphasis is on taste rather than volume,” Matt concludes. “I could easily get a 20% greater yield for the same cost but they wouldn’t have the same taste, so it would be a complete waste of time. We pride ourselves on the taste and freshness of our produce – major advantages Irish growers have over tomatoes coming into the country from Spain or Holland.”
Wexford Tomatoes,
Ballinamona,
Campile,
New Ross,
County Wexford.
Tel: 051 388117
Mobile: 087 243 6244
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 5 No 4, June 2017
