How many times have you heard someone mention that tomatoes don’t taste like they used to? It’s certainly true that the mass-produced tomatoes from abroad – often Spain, Holland and Morocco – are pretty uninspiring; watery, tasteless and with a mushy, floury texture. If you’ve ever grown your own tomatoes then you’ll know how fragrant and sweet they can be when picked and eaten straight from the plant, but to get the same experience from shop-bought varieties you need to keep an eye out for those grown on the Isle of Wight – perhaps not the first place you’d think of being home to top-quality tomatoes.
The Tomato Stall is responsible for the Isle of Wight’s tomatoes, working since the early 2000s to make the island known for the fruit. Originally using old glasshouses on the island that were previously reserved to grow flowers and then bog-standard salad tomatoes, it’s now home to around sixty commercial varieties of tomatoes which come in a cornucopia of colours and flavours.
‘The UK’s attitude to tomatoes – and food in general – is almost unrecognisable today compared to fifteen years ago,’ says managing director Paul Thomas. ‘Back then you might have seen the odd vine tomato if you were lucky, and now there’s a huge demand for all the different varieties. When I started working here I was taking a few interesting fruits to farmers’ markets in London, and the interest just grew and grew. Now we’re growing around sixty-five different varieties to sell, and have another 150 varieties which we’re trialling at any one time to see if we can grow them commercially.’
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