Global warming boosts Anglesey fruit firm

Sep 10 2009 by Andrew Forgrave, Daily Post

FOOD experts believe that Britain’s dietery diversity will shrink as oil supplies dwindle and imports come under threat.

Among the victims of the UK’s predicted food insecurity are likely to be exotic fruits such as bananas and limes.

But according to Anglesey growers Keith and Kathryn Selfe, there’s no reason why tropical fruits should disappear from supermarket shelves.

For several years they’ve been growing their own, in ordinary unheated polytunnels, and have launched a fledgling business selling the fruits of their labours.

The couple are even planting their own half-acre kiwi fruit plantation on open land at Cemaes Bay – allowing landowner Tom Barlow to make his own kiwi wine.

“We keep a daily record of the temperatures in our polytunnels and we’ve got kiwi plants, sourced originally from Siberia, which have withstood temperatures of -29C,” said Kathryn, 46.

“I started growing tropical plants because I liked to be different, not because of climate change or fears over food security.

“However global warming is definitely doing us a favour!”

Carreglefn Nurseries, near Amlwch, started trading 13 months ago, selling almost 60 varieties of tropical fruit plants at farmers markets, food festivals and on-line.

Now Kathryn has branched out into making jams and pickles, and has just launched a bit-free childrens’ range, No Bitz 4 Kidz, using branding developed by her children.

“We had a lot of plant stock, producing fruit, and it seemed a shame to let it rot,” said mother-of-four Kathryn, a former tourism lecturer.

When Keith retired from the police force in Northamptom, the couple bought a caravan park near Caernarfon and Kathryn indulged her passion by working at Crûg Farm Nursery.

Living in the Nantlle Valley, they shocked neighbours by growing a 15ft banana tree in their back garden.

“It became a bit of a local attraction,” said Kathryn.

Three years ago they moved to Anglesey and Keith’s 50ft polytunnel, intended for his boat, was hijacked by Kathryn’s plants. A second, since installed, houses 1,400 kiwi plants for the new plantation, and is high enough to accommodate banana trees.

She said: “We made a conscious decision not to heat the polytunnels as it would have cost us £2,000 each winter, and eaten into any profits.

“Instead we’re trying to propagate hardiness in the plants so that they’ll thrive in Britain’s climate.”

One innovation has been the use of seaweed, collected from Anglesey’s beaches, as a fertiliser. They needed Defra permission, and can only salvage seeweed above the tide-line, but it’s packed with nutrients, said Kathryn.

Seaweed takes several months to dry – the Selfes’ have it hanging in their conservatory – which has hindered plans to sell it commercially. However it works a treat on their exotics.

At last month’s Rhosneigr Food and Craft festival, Kathryn sold out of her jams and pickles on the first day.

She worked until midnight, shining a torch in the polytunnels, to pick and prepare more products for the following day. Bala’s Organic Aran Lamb promptly placed a big order for her Inferno chilli sauce.

It got her thinking. “I’d like to open a community farm shop on the island and I have my eye on some premises,” she said.

“It would be a sort of co-operative outlet for different food producers on Anglesey.”

Carreglefn’s pineapples, lemons, limes and passionfruit may not yet be ready to compete with cheaper imports. But it has provenance and, when the oil crisis comes, may be at the vanguard of a whole new fruit sector in Britain