“The growing conditions this season have been good. In terms of production and harvest, up until around the end of December we had had a good growing year. The weather has deteriorated since Christmas, which makes the harvest more challenging. Obviously, when things are frozen or covered in snow we have to give it some more time to thaw or for the snow to melt before we can continue harvesting. Luckily this year 
cold weather hasn’t had too much of an impact so far.”
Since kale was hailed as a ‘superfood’ a few years ago, Alex says the demand for the vegetable has shot up.“We have seen a very big increase in demand in recent years. Our sales have doubled over the last two to three years. It’s difficult to tell how this will continue, as the rate of acceleration has decreased slightly, but we’re still in a period of growth. At the moment it’s all going very well, but obviously there will be a peak in demand. We can’t see where that will be yet, as we’re still going strong.”
Emmett UK grows around 2000 tonnes of kale annual, an estimated half of the total UK supermarket sales, on just over 400 hectares.
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Alex Boughton