Tomatoes Grown by Paco Lozano at Motril, Spain

£3.50 / 480g

Sweet, juicy tomatoes with a wonderful deep flavour.

These sweet, juicy tomatoes are a variety called Racymo, popular for its sweet, deep flavour.

Local isn’t always best! Many tomatoes are grown under heated glass out of season, at huge environmental cost. When we can’t grow tomatoes at home without heat, we truck over naturally sun-ripened ones from our grower Paco Locano in Spain. In a project with Exeter University, we discovered that this uses just a tenth of the carbon compared with growing them in the UK, using heat.

From the same family as the potato, the tomato was originally brought to Europe from its native home in South America by the Spanish.

Country of origin

Produced in

Spain

How to prepare

Extremely versatile - use fresh in salads or use in sauces, soups and savoury dishes. Dry them to use in winter or use green tomatoes in chutney.

Try making your own fresh salsa by chopping them, adding red or fresh onions and a green herb and well as a squeeze of lemon, vinegar and a bit of sugar, salt and pepper. It’s great with tortilla chips or on a courgette fritter.

BBQ tip: You can sit large tomatoes on the BBQ to cook, but they tend to split or burst, sacrificing all their sweet flavour to the flames. A nice trick is to halve or slice them and toss in a heavy roasting tray with a generous glug of olive oil. Season well and throw in a bay leaf, some sprigs of fresh thyme and a small glass of white wine. Let them tick away over a steady non-direct heat on one side of the grill. They’ll slowly collapse down into a simple, chunky sauce.

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.

Class

Our tomatoes are sold as class 2. This means that they might not look cosmetically perfect, but they are grown for the very best flavour.

Grown by Paco Lozano, Motril, Spain

Paco Lozano runs EcoSur along with his three brothers and has been working with Riverford for over ten years. They grow many of our tomatoes as well as mini watermelons, organic papaya, aubergines, a rainbow of pepper varieties and our first spring flush of french beans.