Red hot chilli peppers in Bedfordshire!
 

It is impossible to pick up a newspaper without reading about the environmental damage being caused by sourcing fresh produce from all over the world, and how air-freighted food, mainly fresh fruit and vegetables are a contributory factor to the increase in food miles and the carbon footprint. But for Parripak Foods, this is one issue that they were already tackling as far back as the year 2000.

Parripak Foods, part of the William Jackson Group, is one of the UK's largest processors of fresh vegetables to chilled-food manufacturers and it sources a significant amount of the produce it prepares from local growers. So when they were seeking a supplier of chillies, they were delighted to find their perfect partner, Genovese Chillies, were based in Blunham, Bedfordshire, just 10 miles from Parripak's site.

The Genovese family came to Bedfordshire from Sicily in 1972 where they purchased a nursery and started growing cucumbers and peppers. In 1980, Salvatore Genovese noticed the high price of chillies in the shops and wondered if he could grow them any cheaper. He started with a small greenhouse and a few plants, and these first chillies proved a big hit with London customers who had never seen UK chillies before.

Today he uses 500,000 bees to pollinate over 60,000 plants on the 4.5 acres site and Salvatore believes that he walks more than 28k each day going up and down each row!

Salvatore understands the need to keep his production process green and has built reservoirs to collect rainwater for irrigation, so there is no need for mains water or boreholes. A state of the art computer system controls the feeding of the plants according to the weather whilst a weather station outside the greenhouse opens and closes the vents according to the way the wind is blowing.

Parripak's joint managing director James Parrish explained the direct benefits of using their local supplier. "Salvatore provides the flexibility and just in time service that we need. Because they are literally up the road we can place our order in the morning and the chillies are picked and delivered on the same day, so they are at their freshest."

Apart from supplying jalapeno and Fresno chillies for Parripak, which accounts for almost 30% of his crop, Salvatore also supplies the main supermarkets with 10 tonnes of large red and large green jalapeno chillies each week. He said: "Buyers are extremely conscious that their green customers are looking to them to actively reduce food miles, so if they can get chillies at the same price in the UK as abroad, they will buy them. "