Matt has got a thing about growing chillies, which is why we asked him to grow ours for us. He eats chillies in his house six days a week which seems a little excessive really and has Chilli Jam on toast for breakfast instead of marmalade like normal people.

To avoid airfreight he grows them either on the South Coast near Chichester in the Summer or on Portugal’s South Coast in the Winter. Then he has back up crops in France and Italy. Rather than try and grow 300 varieties and 100 different colours he just grows crops of good commercial value and concentrates on 6 major varieties, each reflecting a particular culture or cuisine from popular chilli eating nations around the world.

He’s always trialling new different strains as well which is great for us and helps keep us at the forefront of market trends which is where we like our customers to be.

Jose is our tip top Spanish Garlic grower of Red, White and Violet garlic. He supplies all 22 tonnes we use a week for us 12 months of the year in the Minaya region in Spain and then sends it over in these wonderful rather large 1 tonne bags. (Someone should recycle them into shopping bags really).

Apparently he’s a bit of a speedy driver on the Spanish roads and rather frightens Edward when he goes over there. He’s got a bit of a thing about Cantonese food too and loves Basketball.

Andy is our lovely local farmer that takes all our water and veg waste after processing. He cleverly composts it down and uses it as fertilizer. He also going to start growing delicious Organic Parsnips for us which are so delicious roasted in our Winter Roast Vegetables or on their own with a bit of Sarah’s Dad’s lovely local lamb.

Our very own Vic Reynolds builds and adapts machines for the factory. Because we didn’t have one, (they didn’t really even exist) he built a garlic peeling line with Edward’s Dad about 25 years ago. The original proto type was made from an air line and a biscuit barrel. The one we’ve got now is a bit more sophisticated though otherwise we wouldn’t be able to produce the huge quantities that we produce now.