Baby Leaf
Sustainably delivering a fresher, longer lasting, more nutritious Baby Leaf range that tastes great.
Over recent years, we have invested over £4m into our Barway Babyleaf Factory.
The upgrades will enable us to deliver:
- Great Place to Work (Certified)
- Enhanced food safety with micro controls and reduced contaminants
- Increased shelf life, reduction in complaints
- Reduction in food and plastic waste.
- 100% renewable energy used in packing process
Why G's Babyleaf?
Through our diversified UK growing areas and long term strategic partnerships in Europe, we believe we have some of the best growing locations for production of babyleaf crops.
Our UK grown babyleaf, commences harvest in April and runs through until October, our warmer coastal climates typically allows for a longer UK production period.
Throughout our process from seed to pack we are focused on delivering improved shelf life and quality for the consumer, to ensure our babyleaf delivers a point of difference.”
UK Spinach & Babyleaf Trials
Across both the East Coast and Sussex farms we are running a regular program of summer trials to explore emerging disease resistance and quality traits, working with the key seed partners to ensure we are testing all new varieties that are being brought to market.
Pythium and mildew resistance trials; a key focus in recent years have been to find spinach varieties that are tolerant to phythium, which can result in poor seed germination, pre-emergence death of seedlings, post-emergence death of newly emerged seedlings, stunted plants, yellow leaves and general poor growth.
UK Farms - East Coast Growers
- The farms are split over a number of distinct growing locations along the Norfolk Coast – across a radius of 35km.
- The farms benefit from a cooling sea breeze, coupled with uniform silty loam soils which is the perfect environment for summer Babyleaf supply.
- Spread of land enables a 1 in 8 year rotation, mitigating disease risk such as pythium and other soilborne diseases.
- Majority of land has borehole irrigation water sources, reducing incidence of micro. issues associated with reservoir water.
- Growing a range of conventional and organic baby leaf crops such as – spinach, red chard, bulls blood chard, wild rocket, organic spinach, organic baby red and baby green leaf
UK Farms - The Lettuce Company
The farms are located on two distinct growing areas:
- South Downs – growing along the Rother Valley on sandy loam soils that are South facing which warm up earlier in the spring allowing for early season supply
- Chichester Plain – growing on silty clay loam soils
- The area benefits from a maritime climate and is the sunniest area in the UK
- Cropping benefits from a cooling sea breeze resulting in slower crop growth during the Summer ensuring thicker leaf
- Growing a range of conventional leaf types such as – spinach, red chard, bulls blood chard, wild rocket, mizuna, baby green leaf & baby red leaf
Babyleaf Innovation Priorities by Crop Type
Across all of our baby leaf varietal selections we are looking for increased disease tolerance and agronomic benefits, will also looking for taste, visual and quality characteristics:
Spinach – Robust leaf, with thicker characteristics and a slower growing trait in the summer peak, will result in a variety with better shelf-life and yield.
Rocket – Leaf serration, mildew tolerance, increased shelf life and consistent taste profile.
Baby Red– Leaf definition & colour penetration.
Baby Green – Darker green colour and thicker leaf.