DAVID Craig saved the beleaguered Scottish tomato industry from extinction by securing a rescue package of £150,000 co-funded by Clydesdale Bank, South Lanarkshire Council and Scotherbs, and then taking over the largest glasshouse in the famous growing area, planting 10,000 seedlings and launching Clyde Valley Tomatoes to a new foodie generation last year.
It quickly became Scotland's largest producer of specialist fresh tomatoes.
Now Mr Craig, with partner Scott Robertson, is branching out. From today, a new range of products under the Clyde Valley Kitchen label is being launched using home-grown tomatoes, cucumbers and soft fruit, bladderwrack seaweed from the Isle of Bute, and kale and root vegetables from Gordon Caldwell's farm in Turnberry, Ayrshire. They will be produced daily on-site by Mr Craig in a small, purpose-built production kitchen which cost £2,000.
Smokey tomato relish and a classic tomato ketchup at £3, a semi-dried tomato and olive antipasto at £4 per 200g tub, a range of fresh juices and lemonades - including kale, apple and lemon, carrot and ginger, and Scottish raspberry lemonade - at £3 and a range of dried seaweeds at £4 a bag will be available at the Edinburgh Farmers' Market from today. Kale crisps and a range of soups will also be available. A range of "reinvented" condiments, such as Candy Stripe Beetroot Pickle, will follow.
The pair hope that the fresh larder goods, which are all wheat-, fat- and dairy-free, will help increase sales by at least £50,000 within a year, and grow the business by more. If the trial range, which runs until Christmas, is successful, the pair hope to add retail distribution.
In their first growing season, which ended in November 2013, Mr Craig - a former brand manager of Matthew Algie coffee and marketing manager of WholeFoods Market in Glasgow - and Mr Robertson cropped 100 tonnes of 14 new and classic varieties grown hydroponically and pollinated by in-house bees.
Names include Annamay and Campari red cocktail vines, Sungreen tiger stripe, Black Marmande beef, Ardilles medium plum, Lajaune yellow cherry, Claree red cherry, Sunchicola black cherry and classic red varieties Encore and Calvano.
A turnover of £200,000 represented a small operating loss - but they were happy with sales performance.
After only its second season, the company has doubled its harvest to 200 tonnes in 2014 and grown sales by 60 per cent to around £350,000, a success due in part to the long, hot summer and new distribution deals to major outlets Waitrose and Morrisons, WholeFoods Market in Glasgow, House of Bruar and weekly farmers' markets in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Mr Craig said: "Using our produce together with root vegetables from Gordon Caldwell's farm in Turnberry and other local producers to make a range of delicious home-made products means we can create a year-round business where we can retain the 12 staff we engage during the busy growing season.
"If it proves successful we will be looking into moving to a larger production facility. In the medium to long term I hope the Clyde Valley Kitchen will become a bigger part of the business than the tomatoes."
Mr Craig is now seeking an investor to enable him to buy, next year, the 32-acre site from Jim Craig of J&M Craig (no relation), who with his wife Liz ran the business at Briarneuk for 40 years before retiring in 2011.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article