Cherry tomatoes Grown by Paco Lozano at Motril, Spain

£3.00 / 250g

This week we're packing Sintonia cherry tomatoes

We grow organic cherry tomatoes for flavour, trialling, testing and tasting until we find the best varieties. They’re sweet, deeply flavoured and bursting with juice.

Local isn’t always best! When our own tomato season is over or we can’t grow quite enough here, we truck over naturally sun-ripened ones from our friend Paco in Spain. This uses just a tenth of the carbon compared with growing them in the UK using artificial heat.

Plastic free

Country of origin

Grown in

Spain

UK Seasonality

Our season lasts from June to mid September. The rest of the year tomatoes come from our Spanish growers. Using cold tunnels, we can extend the season from June to mid October, which is as far as we go at Riverford. Under heated glass, tomatoes can be picked from March to Christmas but the energy used results in about 2 kilos of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere for every kilo of tomatoes produced. Where waste or low-grade heat is used from combined heat and power electricity generation or other sources, it can make sense, but generally, if we must eat tomatoes earlier than July or later than October, from a taste and environmental perspective it would be better to import them. Better still, just give them a miss in their fresh form from November to April.

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Great to eat cherry tomatoes with a rich, ripe flavour

- Ged, Riverford customer

How to prepare

Use fresh in salads or add to sauces, soups and savoury dishes. For cherry tomato pasta, throw in a tray with a splash of olive oil, garlic and herbs and roast until sweet and sticky. Turn through the cooked pasta of your choice, sliver over some Parmesan and you’re done.

Storage

Delivered from our farm, so wash before cooking. Best kept out of the fridge and on a cool veg rack. Underripe tomatoes can be kept at room temperature, very ripe in the fridge - but bring to room temperature before eating for flavour.