West Midlands
Did you know?
In the West Midlands, some 603 farmers supply us with meat, poultry and eggs.
Trevor Giles
For example, last year our stores in your region sold organic English Victoria plums grown locally, in the Vale of Evesham, by Trevor Giles.
His first year of working with us, Trevor admits he expected us to dismiss him out of hand when frost struck and wiped out two thirds of his crop.
But he says: "Tesco said they wanted a partnership whereby we look after each other in good times and bad, so they still took my fruit, even though I could only offer three tonnes. This year the crop looks much healthier and I'm hoping to supply between 10 and 20 tonnes of plums."
The security of the Tesco deal is enabling Trevor to re-invest in his orchard, which he started from scratch four years ago.
Haygrove Fruit
Angus Davison began growing strawberries as part of a university project. Almost two decades on, and his company Haygrove Fruit is supplying our stores with about 150 tonnes of UK-grown organic strawberries each year from April to Christmas.
The Herefordshire-based company is clearly at the forefront of innovation when it comes to extending UK seasons. But it was the advice of a Victorian gardening book which was to solve their organic headache.
After reading the book, Angus offered a home to hedgehogs recovering from road accidents and the hedgehogs returned the favour by eating slugs threatening his organic crop. He now has wooden boxes around the strawberry fields to give hedgehogs daytime shelter. After dusk they munch the slugs along the rows of plants.
Haygrove - which employs 60 people in Herefordshire - is now also lending its expertise to third world producers through its Gambia is Good collaboration with charity Concern Universal.