Life on the pea harvest

10.30 on Tuesday Morning.

I’ve come to meet my old friend Mateo the Agricultural Manager in our company in Italy. Mateo and I go back a long way, we must have known each other for 30 years. He’s a very good customer and buys a lots peas from us.

Peas are very popular in Italy surprisingly, although they usually use them quite differently. They tend to use them as ingredients in recipes, very often fried in olive oil, with ham, onions and garlic or in risotto. They sell around 30,000 tons into the market so it’s pretty similar to the UK numbers.

The purpose of coming to Italy was one, to meet with Mateo and sort out the details of this year’s contracts and two, because we’re looking at a new product, edible Soya.

We’ve done a small test market which is looking good so we’re extending the trial. You have to find the right area, the right climate, for Soya. That’s why we’re here in Italy. With the current varieties it’s not possible to grow Soya in the UK.

It’s a very exciting product that has all sorts of health benefits and is nutritionally very good. So as the day goes on I’ll take some more pictures and show you what we’re up to.

Signing off for now.