September 22, 2025 • 54 mins
Step into the greenhouse with cucumber royalty. In this episode, we talk to the King of Cucumbers - Marco Caffarelli. Marco reveals what it takes to grow a perfect cucumber - heart, hard work, and a strong family unit.
Growing over a million sticks of cucumber each year, this is a fascinating insight into a specialist grower who truly loves what he does.
Hosted by Rob Burton, sponsored by Fresho.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is hard. I want to be different.
I like to be different and it was like a rabbit in headlights.
A very hard lesson if you want to get on in this life.
I grow with my heart. What a great way of putting it,
I never thought of it like that.Absolutely stubborn and I went
for it. Oh, precious, precious.
Moments you'll never get unpacked.
It's quite moving. Oh, sorry about that.
(00:23):
Welcome to Supplied, the podcastabout how fresh food gets to us
from the people who produce it, move it and cook it.
I'm Rob Burton. I've spent over 45 years both
growing and then supplying fruitinvades and some of Britain's
top restaurants. Now I get the chance to talk to
people behind the food we eat from specialist growers,
committed suppliers and meesing style kitchens.
We'll hear how they got started,why they do what they do and the
(00:46):
lessons they've learned along the way.
So whether you work in fresh food or just care where yours
come from, you're in the right place.
This podcast is made possible byFresher, the order management
platform that helps food supplies run smoother, faster
and smarter operations. Now let's get into the episode.
Today, my guest is Marco Caffarelli, who is the third
(01:06):
generation of the family in 60 years involved in growing based
on floral farming island near Cambridge.
He and his family specialised ingrowing cucumbers.
The family has been given the name of cucumber royalty by the
chefs at Ferndale Hotels simply because their cucumbers taste
like cucumbers should. I think it's fair to say that
Marco has an interesting tale ortwo to tell us today, along with
(01:29):
helping us understand more aboutwhat it takes to produce a truly
stunning cucumber as against onethat is just about OK.
Marco, welcome. Thank you for coming.
Not a problem. So should we start with, should
we start with the family history?
Where does that? Where does that take us back to?
OK, yeah, so my father came he over from Italy with his
(01:53):
parents. Well, my granddad was a prisoner
of war in London or Broxbourne in London, and it was the age of
19. And back then if you came over
you had to go straight to work. And he went to work making kerb
stones during the week and in the evenings and at weekends he
(02:15):
worked on a nursery doing the tomatoes and cucumbers.
Whereabouts, What area? A roundabout, I think it was
whole lane around that area, thewhat is known as the Lee van.
Yeah. He was around the Tyler's Cross.
All them sort of areas. They were, they were even flower
nurseries or food nurseries, youknow, cucumbers, tomatoes and
(02:37):
stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, If my message is
correctly, there's a lot of Italian families ended up in the
Lee Valley area, is that right? Yeah, in this well renowned as
the Lee Valley. Yeah, Italy, I think they used
to call it at times as well. So that's how he got his
involvement with, with growing. Yeah.
He so he, he started there and he worked with, unbeknown to
(03:00):
him, what would have been his father-in-law and my dad.
So my mum's dad and his dad, they worked on a nursery.
They then rented a nursery a fewyears later.
Then after about three years they then went and bought a
(03:20):
nursery together, which was nearcoincidentally Tesco's first
head office was next door to thehead.
So they bought that. And then after a couple of years
my 2 grandparents decided that that was not for them because it
was hard work. Back in them days it was straw
bales, it was all sorts of stuff.
Small convention was hard work. So dad carried on and then from
(03:46):
there he then moved on to another nursery and from that
one it was OK. But we lived in Chesson and he
had to travel every day and it was like a 40 minute drive.
And he got, he got fed up with that, didn't want that because
he didn't see the family. My mum had her own hairdressing
(04:07):
salon in Chesson. So they had a discussion and
they looked for somewhere where they could live and work on the
same site. So in 1979 the.
So you'd be about 30 then, yeah.But you was near retirement age
by then I would imagine. But it's OK.
So they then, they then found this place in Iceland, in
(04:33):
Cambridgeshire, which was a dream for them, an absolute
shock for me because I'd gone from living in a, a city or city
environment into the absolute middle of nowhere it felt.
Like and so how? Old were you at this .08 or 9
years old? So it was a bit of a shock for
me, not for them. And and that became Floral Farm.
(04:59):
The first year my father grew tomatoes on this nursery, didn't
like it because he knew his cucumbers.
So then the following year he changed everything and went onto
cucumbers. And was it called Floral Farm
then or? Yeah, it was called Floral Farm
then because originally it was acarnation nursery.
(05:20):
OK. So that's that's why it's called
Floral Farm. And that's why the glass House
were there, yeah. Yeah.
And then that's when it started.And was it sort of fit for
purpose and ready to go or was the work needed doing to?
Absolutely not. He bought the the farm off the
bank because unfortunately it itdidn't work out for the previous
(05:42):
owner. And so it was in need of a lot
of work. The bungalow, what we, what my
parents moved in, what we moved into had been empty for five or
six years. Some local people tried to keep
it going for on behalf of the Bank of what was going on, which
was good of them and they did a good job of it.
(06:04):
But obviously it's not theirs and it needed a lot of work.
So. And it was a lot of work, a lot,
a lot of work, a lot of hours. I used to make it fit for
purpose, fit for purpose to try and earn a living.
The years were hard. I remember them vividly.
We, we worked as a, as a family really did.
(06:27):
So I'd go to school, come home from school and this would be at
9-10 years old, I'd have to go down and and help out whether it
was back in then days you made the boxes or in the greenhouse
moving stuff, you know, and things like that.
Just out of interest, so going back to that, in terms of yield
then and yield now, what's the difference?
(06:53):
As in terms of cucumber sticks, I couldn't really tell you
because there's no record of theother cucumber stick back then.
As in terms of a growing season where I could tell you that the
cucumbers was was not planted until March, late March and then
(07:15):
you'd be finished in September, sometime in September.
So you planted in late March. When did you first start
cropping? Be about four weeks back then,
but that was after you'd put allthe straw bales in, wrote what
you'd have to. You'd have to steam the glass
house, disinfect it, steam it. Then when that was done, the
whole greenhouse would be rotavated again.
(07:38):
And in the early years it was a one the quarter acre block and
before my dad built some more and he used to rate it, rotavate
it. If you've ever seen him at a
Honda, not a Mary Tiller rotavator done about a metre at
a time. And about 110 foot wide
greenhouse. So up and down we'd go.
And I used to do it as well withhim.
(08:00):
So OK, so there's not a record there, but what would you gut
feel be in terms of percentage terms, You know, like if, if, if
zero was the number, then in terms of percentage, what, what
how's the how's the increase? What is the increase in product?
So we. Do now about 1,000,000 to 1.2
million sticks a year. I would say back then we'd be
(08:24):
lucky if we'd done probably 150,000 sticks.
Goodness me, it's a massive jump.
It's a massive extended season now as well.
So your season then was plantingin late March, start cropping 4
weeks after. What does that look like now?
Now, so this, this growing season, which is 25 and for the
(08:46):
first time ever, I decided aftera long conversation with my
plant producer, my like that propagates my seeds, that I
would like to start a little bitquicker, a bit sooner to keep
my, my clients happy because they want my cucumbers and they
get pretty, pretty moany when they have to keep relying on
(09:08):
foreign imports. They don't want it correct.
So I I planted cucumbers in December 2024 on the 30th of
December. Right and started cropping those
when? About the 7th of February we
started cropping, which was a bit not as quick as I wanted,
but we had unusually dull weather, so it didn't go how it
(09:29):
wanted. So it's been up till now.
Thus, it's been a long season already.
Yeah. And go from them.
But if you want to go back to what we used to do years ago,
the greenhouse, when the cucumbers were finished in
September, we used to plant halfa million round cabbies,
lettuces in that greenhouse. All right, So I can tell you
(09:51):
that in two weeks that was cut, picked, gone.
So my mum, my dad, me getting off the bus and making these
flaming lettuce boxes every night and they'd have lights up
and another worker that do his standard out here 40 hours a
week back then. And in two weeks that was cut,
gone and sold. Amazing.
(10:12):
So after Christmas, everything started for the cucumber season.
And obviously, I mean for the, perhaps for the benefit of our
listeners is that cucumbers needheat.
But they need lots of heat, lotsof light.
Yeah, you can, you can do what you want, but you'll never beat
nature. Yeah.
So are the. I mean, obviously heating can be
artificial. What about do you use artificial
(10:34):
lighting? No, I don't use artificial
lighting, but about 1213 years ago, 12 years ago to be precise,
I installed a biomass system. At that time my father was very
ill, very, very ill actually. And so I took it upon myself to
(10:55):
install a biomass heating systemso I could burn wood and straw
because the price of oil, because we was on oil was
horrendous. It wasn't working.
So we wouldn't have been there to this day if we hadn't have,
if I hadn't have made that radical change and and done
(11:16):
that. So we run 2 biomass boilers now
to run on straw, locally sourcedstraw and wood and we also have
a a quite an array of solar panels on the roofs of the
buildings to try and help with the electricity costs as well.
So you so have you always? Actually, no.
(11:38):
Better question, why do your cucumbers taste like a cucumber
should? Now you don't need to give any
trade secrets away if you don't want to, but there is a
difference because I've done blind tastings myself and with
customers and it just OK. From the outside it looks like
they both look like cucumbers, but one has got a distinctly
more cucumber taste than the other.
(11:59):
Why? I would say there's several
reasons. I'm taught with cucumbers from
learning a crop, so I've I went to college.
(12:22):
I knew more than the tutors whenI was at college.
What specifically a horticultural?
I went to a horticultural, agricultural college.
The problem when I got there wasI knew more than most because
I've been around growing stuff all my life.
So I I've grown Peppers, aubergines, everything.
I've more or less grown anything.
I had once done a big array of abird of paradise.
(12:44):
Have you ever seen the we, we'vedone them there.
I can't remember. I couldn't tell you, but we grew
them. So this was all before I was 16
and I went to college. The problem was I knew more than
what I was being taught. So I went off and I learned how
to things so I can, I can do nursery stock, I can do
amenities. So I learnt how to bud and graft
(13:05):
on trees, apples and all that roses.
So I ended up doing a lot of other stuff other than what I
was specifically supposed to do.Yeah, because I just knew so
much. So I'm, I'm what you would call
a grower. So I grow, grow by feel.
I grow a bit what I see, but what I know my cucumbers are
(13:28):
different. They are different.
There's no disbelief in that. Even though I can't eat
cucumber, they give me horrific indigestion.
Really. Yeah.
But I, the cucumber grower, doesn't eat the cucumber.
Yeah, that's how it is. Yeah, I'm afraid so.
But I can tell you without a taste test.
I can tell you from a smell testwhich one's mine and which one
isn't so. From a smell.
(13:49):
Just by the smell of them. So there was a story once
hovering around that our cucumbers made it onto one of
the Q&R boats. Actually, we've made a few boats
in our time, big, big noise boats as well.
So we we was on there and apparently the chef stopped
everyone in the kitchen and asked what the smell was.
(14:11):
And it was, does that actually smell like a cucumber?
And that kind of that, that got that, that message got relayed
back to us, which was quite niceto hear.
Huge cumbers, isn't it? Yeah, it is.
And then this year, the South Pole expedition, a friend of a
friend who knew me was on there and was walking through the
kitchen and saw a cucumber box that said Caffrey cucumbers in
(14:34):
the South Pole. So that was quite nice as well.
On the Saint Avidan Borough boat.
I've got the pictures and all that.
They all got sent to me, so it'sgood.
So. But what makes mine taste?
I'm a grower. Yeah.
So I grow. I don't want to grow something
that you can pick up anywhere and everywhere.
I want to be different. I like to be different.
(14:54):
None of us are under any illusions that you are fucking
different. Don't you know a kid?
So we grow attentively. We're not a massive concern so
we grow slightly steadier, don'tover force and you get a little
bit more of a naturalness to theflavour and that's what it is.
(15:18):
And that's all that really is. That is as well as Saturn
knowing what your plants doing. Every day, twice a day I spend
time walking around and looking and I can walk through a crop A
quieter pace and tell you exactly what's going on.
By now by from years ago when I was a kid remembering my dad was
straw bales and that when he used to pull the straw Bale
(15:40):
about, get a fork and it'd be like 8 feet away from where this
plant was growing, he'd dig the ground and to see what the roots
were doing in the soil underneath.
So that's that's how I learned root is just knowing what you're
growing. Yeah, experience and feel,
having that feel. And that's you can't teach feel.
(16:01):
You just you just feel it. Yeah, just.
I know it sounds ridiculous. Yeah, I know.
I just know what I'm doing. It's like a chef saying, you
know, when they cook something, how do they know that taste in
it? Yeah, they know what they've
done. Yeah.
Yeah. Going back to the growing cycle,
so assuming that light and heat are so important and I'm
(16:21):
guessing so the growing cycle islonger for those ones you
planted on the 30th of December.So what's the shortest?
So when conditions are absolutely perfect from time of
planting to time of cropping, how quick can it be?
What's the other extreme? So it can, it ranges, really.
So it ranges how you treat the plant, what you do, what the
(16:41):
weather's doing, you know. So if you've got extreme heat,
ironically, cucumbers have been a hot house plant that's been,
you know, hot greenhouses and that and over the years have
bred them so that they grow slightly cooler so you don't
have to pump all the heating into them.
And now we've got this supposedly global warming
business going on. So cucumbers a lot when it's
(17:04):
really hot, 30°, they don't likeit yet.
I remember as a kid, if it was 30°, my dad was jumping for joy
in the greenhouse. This is what they want.
So it's it's contrast, but the quickest I personally have
produced from 18 inch tall plantto pick in the 1st cucumbers 12
days. But as a rule that's perfect
(17:27):
conditions perfect with a perfect grower obviously like
me. So as a rule everyone in the
industry says about 3 weeks, butit is achievable to do it
quicker. We've talked about heating, and
you've just touched upon the fact that they don't like it
when it's too hot to milk. Can you cool?
(17:48):
Can you reduce the temperature abit over above opening the
windows? No Scarlets.
No, only if you shade the glass with like a lime wash, they'll
shade it. You can shade the glass and sort
of, you know, it gives an effectof shading, but it's still hot
in there. But then on the other side of
it, you need a light as well. So it's a bit of a thing now
(18:09):
that now we have like thermal screens that you can pull across
when it's too hot, which just calms it down a little bit.
And then obviously in the wintermonths, you plant early, the
screens are shut when it's cold.And when it's a bright cold day,
you put the heating on, open thescreens up like a like a, like a
Roman blind really, but a horizontal 1, and it opens up
and lets the sunlight in. So you were involved obviously
(18:33):
from a very young age. You mentioned sort of 910 years
old. So when you finished your
education, did you then go straight into it or did you?
Absolutely not why I was not allowed?
Not allowed. Why?
No, They got you worked out. Yeah, yeah, My father knew me
(18:54):
pretty well actually. My, my, my dad and, and we could
have really good proper conversations at times.
And he said that it would it, it'd be best that you worked
somewhere else and learnt what it's like to work under
(19:14):
somebody, whereas you can't family business, you can
manipulate and also it can also be the other way around
completely. So I had to go off and work
somewhere else for about a year,a year I went and of all the
places I went and worked in a scrap yard in Newmarket.
(19:36):
It was the biggest scrap yard inthe country at the time.
Why did you choose a scrap yard?What drew you to that?
Well, because mate got me a job to be fair.
With you, so it was basically you couldn't get a job anywhere
else. You wasn't.
There it was easy. It was absolutely easy.
Everybody wanted me, but I, I chose.
I could imagine queuing around the block.
Oh yeah. Undoubtedly.
(19:56):
So I went there. I went as a shunter train
driver. So I had the little Thomas the
Tank Engine that I drove around this yard, driving these bins
around and which I used to put the scrap metal in all these.
Older generation X travellers ifyou like, and when they told you
(20:17):
to pick up something that weighed 60 odd kilos, if you
didn't pick it up, you knew about it so you picked it up.
A very a very hard lesson of howyou will work if you want to get
on in this life. Didn't do you any harm though,
I'd wager. Absolutely not the the industry
(20:41):
if you want to go on to how it goes in, in other ways, the
industry, what I do now is hard work, hard hours, hard work.
And when I worked with these menwho some are still alive today,
but crazily enough, I'm friends with their children and their
(21:01):
grandchildren. I've been to weddings and also
because I've got on so well withthese men.
And those were the people that you were working with.
These scrap yards, yeah. And they weren't my bosses.
They were just people that worked in this scrap yard.
And when you pick something up and don't you fuck around and
grow up, stop being a little child and pick it up.
You worked. You seriously worked.
(21:22):
And you knew you'd done. You'd done a day shift.
And if you was 2 minutes late, you was docked quarter of an
hour pace. So you was never 2 minutes late.
1 minute late was acceptable. 2 minutes was.
So it was a hard grounding, a really hard grounding.
And like I say, still friends. I'm 56 now and I was 17 at the
(21:43):
time. 18, still friends with thefamilies to this day, several of
them as well. So you did that what say for
about a year? Yeah, nearly a year.
It was nearly a year. And then did you then go?
And back to the And then the conversation came the.
What do you want to do? You're obviously quite happy
(22:03):
there. Yeah.
Train driver, crane driver, you know, all sorts of things fit
any. I was everything and anything.
What do you want to do? So it was a bit of a
conversation and I decided to come.
And whether it's as farming goes, it's impregnated from
(22:27):
birth that that son is going to take over the family farm, same
as the cucumber farm. I think if you talk to the other
cucumber growers, it's the same thing.
To Mars, the whole lot. So basically you are going to be
this grower because you're the son.
So I went to work for a dad. You're right, but I mean I was,
(22:48):
our family business was farming and my father said to me on
several occasions. You don't need to do this.
You don't have to do this, but Iwanted to do it and that he did
try very hard to put me off. And that was another
conversation that we had going back then.
He was like to be here is good, but look to do, look to do if
(23:13):
you can see to do if you can do something else because you've
got all this land, you've got everything here.
If and he said if you want to make money, become a landscaper.
He was he wasn't far wrong really.
So he he was putting you under no pressure at all.
No to join the family business. I wanted to supersede what he'd
(23:35):
done. We do better than what he.
Most definitely I wanted to. It was hard because he was a
self-made man from a very hard life.
So obviously you can imagine that.
Did that was your hard? Did you, did that put you under
a lot of, did you put yourself under a lot of pressure because
you wanted to be what he'd achieved?
It was both pressure. I mean, we could probably do the
(23:58):
work of four blokes just the twoof us.
Yes, we, you know, you'd put a shift in a hard shift.
You'd be down, you'd be down there at 4:00 in the morning.
If we didn't come in, we might come in at 1:00 and have a bite
to eat because you'd go in the house and you'd sit at a table
and eat. But you'd only have a like half
an hour, 40 minutes and then probably not not come in that
(24:21):
evening till about 6/7, 8:00, maybe even later sometimes.
Sounds like you and your dad hada really good relationship and a
good working relationship. We we had a decent relationship.
We had a severely enviable working relationship, I would
(24:45):
say in the area and in, I think to this day with my family as we
are as a business, we, we have got an envy of how we work and
how we think. And it's kind of like I'm proud
to be a super, super hard worker, but I'm also under no
(25:07):
illusions it will have a price to pay at some stage and has had
a price to pay with children growing up.
I mean, I've got four children. I've got two boys, 2 girls.
They. Involved.
One's involved when one's havinga bad day at work it wants to be
involved in. Otherwise it's, you know, grass
is greener on the other side. The eldest one, he's involved
(25:30):
and he he does remind me of me as in the hours he will put in
not in every way. So we, we are, we are known for
the work we put into what we do locally and I think pretty much
everywhere else, we keep things to ourselves.
(25:52):
So me and my dad had a relationship and it was a
typical probably working for your father in a family
relationship. It was up and down but in terms
of work we could really work andI think in some respects I over
pressured myself in the early years to be as good or better.
(26:15):
Yeah, I can relate to that. Yeah.
And was that achievable then? Probably not how things were
then. And then my while that was going
on, my, my dad's father died andthe grandparents when I was
young was a big influence on life, you know, so and he really
(26:39):
done my both my grandparents, but one died was very young.
But, but dad's dad, he was, he was big.
I used to go with him on the allotments and and things like
he was a very true green fingered grower.
So he died and then things kind of knocked into place and I come
back and then. But Dad, there was some worrying
signs that didn't seem correct. Right, in terms of his health.
(27:03):
Yeah, so he had a pacemaker and bits and bobs, extremely high
blood pressure for a long while,which he didn't even know he'd
got. So he'd gotten enlarged heart.
So as as the come work back working for the family, as as
the years rolled on. And then probably be 15 years
ago now, he at the age of 65, hedeveloped Alzheimer's quite
(27:27):
heavily. All of a sudden it came on.
So I was thrown into the drivingseat and it was like a rabbit in
headlights. How old were you at that point,
4038? Yeah, 3840, something like that.
So then you had to step up and be the man.
(27:49):
Yeah. And I didn't.
You didn't. I struggled, OK, I I did, I did
the industry there's that point.The industry was turning the
rate of not so your Tesco's werepopping up and and saying be out
of town building was getting more and more.
So the supermarkets were dominating the trade which was
(28:12):
eroding your traditional customer base.
So our traditional customer basewas wholesalers, market stalls,
fruit and veg shop, traditional green grocers and they were
dropping like flies. And I didn't really know what to
do. So it was a bit of a where are
we going? And, and to be fair with you, I
(28:32):
struggled and, and wasn't doing great.
And then it's sort of like all sort of things happened.
My dad died and it was a case of, well, if you want to do what
you always said you was going todo, you better pull your bloody
(28:53):
socks up Marco and crack on here.
So I picked myself up, had a chat in the mirror, had a look
at everything, my children, my wife, my poor mother and I.
I took this thing where I was going to succeed and I was not
(29:20):
under any circumstances or anything, even at the expense of
my family. I think my mentality was at that
time I was going to pull it through.
So you were very single minded in your approach.
I was needed to be. Absolutely stubborn pig Genghis
Khan ignorant and I went for it.With the benefit of hindsight,
(29:40):
would you change any of that? What my life has in general.
No, you're that single minded approach because you mentioned
it possibly to the Detroit of your family, yes.
I would change that. I probably wouldn't have.
I wouldn't have that now, but I'm quite fortunate that my
wife, who was a single parent for a few years and and had been
(30:05):
quite I'll herself with a with aback operation stuck by me and
my mother, who's now 67, put in the effort with her and the
kids. We've done what we could, done
how we could, and. And are you?
Would I have done it different? I don't know.
(30:26):
Yes, I would have done. Knowing what I know now, yes.
It's the same old story, isn't it?
If I knew back then what I knew now, I'd be a billionaire and
not. Yeah, I mean 20/20/20
Hindsight's magnificent. I, I don't regret anything I've
ever done because actually it's a very negative emotion as far
as I'm concerned, because actually the bottom line is I
(30:47):
can't change it. Hopefully I've learnt from some
of it, but I can't change it. So I'm not going to beat myself
about the bad decisions I've made because you make a
decision, you believe if you're right at the time, that's best
you can do. I'm whether I was fortunate or
unfortunate, I don't know. So I came from a father that was
(31:07):
really hard working. Maybe to this day, I think the
right decision was to go to thisscrap metal yard with a, with a
bunch of blokes that worked hard.
They were like navvies, you know, that was and so in my, my,
my set now is you have to put a shift in.
(31:27):
I'm not blessed with O levels, alevels and university degrees.
I think it's a a thing that's what's been installed into
people today then, but I don't think it's a necessity of life.
I've always said if you've got abit of a brain about you and
you're willing to work, you'll always put food on your table
and more. I'm with you on that.
(31:48):
I mean, if you if you say speaking as a non parent, if you
say to to people who've got kids, what's the one thing you
really want to give your kids? And generally the most popular
answer is I want to give them a great education.
Fuck off. Give them the work ethic.
Give them a life. Because I know people with list
of qualifications as long as they're on they got a pot to
piss in. I also know plenty of people who
have got no qualifications. They do have a work ethic.
(32:11):
There's always bread on the table, there's always a roof
over the head and there always will be.
Thanks to Fresho for sponsoring this episode.
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And it's all backed with 24/7 support so you get help when you
(32:34):
really need it. To find out more, go to
fresho.com. So earlier on you asked me about
why my cucumbers are different. What's the secret?
The secret is a little bit in the growing of steady as she
goes a little bit. But in all honesty, if you want
(32:55):
to know the secret of why I growthe cucumber I grow.
A few years ago there was big mega sites of glass being built
huge and at that point I wanted to expand slightly and when
these big massive blocks of glass were going up, I decided
(33:18):
not to do it because I figured that it would knock the industry
for six. And what overproduction?
Oh yeah, just basically because overproduction.
But this a little Dutch man thatI, I can talk to and get on well
with and and he's not a grower, but he works in the industry.
(33:41):
He's actually a Glazer, repairs the house in greenhouses.
He said to me, I don't know whatyou're worrying about.
They're not growers, manufacturers.
Yeah, he said you, you have got an absolutely nothing to worry
about. So I didn't listen to him,
unfortunately, and I didn't expand, but I grow.
(34:08):
This is hard. I grow with my heart.
I. Get it?
Yeah, I'm with you all the way on that.
I get it. And it's when you start thinking
about it, it's quite it's quite moving.
And I think back to when I was akid and indeed when I left saw I
started work going round the farm with my dad.
Oh, precious, precious moments. Yes.
(34:31):
He you'll never get back. No, he was.
You've got me at it now, you twat.
Yeah, my father. Yeah, he was a big thing in my
life. He finished up shooting himself
when he was 61. We're not going to go down that
particular. It was the wires and wherefores.
But he was a huge person of my life.
(34:52):
But the treasured moments were going with him round the farm
generally on a Sunday morning because the only time we really
got time to do it and him givingme the pearls of wisdom, and I
mean the one thing that stands out in my mind, we just got a
lot of peas, fresh peas handpicked.
Peas. You know, and, and at it's peak
(35:13):
you'd have two or 300 pickers inthe field, which was hard going.
Oh yeah, yeah, very hard. The one thing he said if you
really want to judge how good your peas are, give them give
when they're picked and in the net, as they were in those days,
He said just give them a little squeeze with your hand and if
they're squeaky said they're talking to you, He said that's
wrong. I said, and that's when they're
good. He said if you give them a
squeeze and nothing comes, he says they're wrong.
(35:35):
Things like that. Still with me.
But it is hugely emotional because you bury your heart and
soul and everything into it. It takes all of you.
Yeah, Yeah. You're you're imprisoned.
I can't think what the words are, but.
But is it imprisoned? It's because it's it's what?
I wanted to do, yeah. Then then is it a prison?
No, because you could have if you're.
(35:56):
I think it's the it's the self-employed employed kind of
scenario with other people in other jobs, isn't it?
It's up, you're employed, but you're self-employed working on
a farm. It's up to you how good you want
to do your job. And, and I, and I want, I like,
it's really nice to be known that you cannot buy these
(36:18):
cucumbers, what I produce anywhere.
And they are different. And I really love growing
different types of cucumber. I get really, I mean, the
trouble is I find growing cucumbers boring, if I'm
brutally honest with you. Yeah, you need a challenge.
I do need a challenge. So I grow different types of
speciality cues, white ones, little things ones.
(36:39):
I've grown what A1 for woks, which was an Asian cucumber for
stir fries. The only person in the country
to do it. Only person in Europe was
growing for a while, but they discontinued it because it
didn't take off. I understand that.
Then I now I grow these really small ones that are probably
half the size of your little finger and people go blinking.
(37:00):
Madam, if you want to know, I'm going to sit here as like with
my crystal ball on the table. And I think the future in
cucumbers is not what you'd calla standard European cucumber.
How do you say it them? I see it as smaller cucumbers.
I see it as you can get snack ones.
Yeah, which big is your thumb kind of scenario, these little
(37:23):
mini ones. And also they call them portion
cucumbers, which are about half the size or a little bit under
that. I think that's where it'll go.
But I think the biggest trend will probably be the smaller
cucumbers because it's lobby in a, in a, in a box, you know,
with the, the husband goes to work or the husband's pack or
the mail, whoever is doing a pack up, rather than sitting
(37:46):
there, slice, slice, slice. They'll just go, yeah, Chuck one
in, Chuck one in. It's a bit like today that it's
a treat to give your child. Go to a drive through and fill
it for the poison. Yeah, yeah, that's a good thing.
Is it? You know.
But because society tells you today that there's no time to go
home and prepare a meal. Absolute rubbish.
(38:07):
There is time come to come to myworld and work my hours and tell
me there's no time to prepare a meal.
I can do it, you know. Interesting.
So are you based on that's how you see the future, are you
thinking of going down that particular route into
production, so taking less out, producing slightly less of your,
(38:29):
shall we say, standard cucumbersand going down that route
because I know you've been growing these, these snack ones
for a while. Yeah.
At present, no, but just keepingmy my ears, ears and eyes and my
nose on what's going on. Yeah, I think probably be
another 5 or 6 years and we might see a trend backing.
(38:51):
I mean the supermarket is and I hate supermarkets.
Sorry what the fuck should put abutton there?
The supermarket is a bit like a telling you what the perfect
piece of fruit, vegetable, meat,whatever it is looks like.
So untrue, it's so untrue. So it's whether the supermarkets
(39:16):
or the next buyer going down theline likes these things and
thinks, do you know what, we're going to start pushing these and
that's what they'll do. And then they'll come up with
sales techniques and techniques and stuff like that.
You know, like they, I don't know if you're aware of it, but
breweries, pubs like Green King and, and all them.
They're doing this thing now. The breweries are available
(39:38):
well. I can't remember them.
So they're changing the glasses so how a pint glass feels every
so often, every sort of like 8 months they're sending new ones
out because they feel different.So it's, it's interesting, it's.
Clever. It's very clever.
It's working out human behaviour, what it responds to.
(40:00):
So that's what they're doing. So it's about whether the
supermarkets want to go this way.
I think they will, but we'll see.
But there. But there's one thing with them
small cucumbers, there's more work than a standard cucumber.
A lot. More wine shows you the
harvesting. Harvesting, training them, you
know, and you, you still have to, you know, I think we put, we
(40:23):
put a crop in in January or, or December, March, that crop comes
out. We disinfect the greenhouse, we
clean it all down. We then plant another crop.
So we normally turn around 8000 plants in a day out cleaned.
Next day we wash. We we give it an extra clean.
Yeah. After that, plants come the
(40:44):
following morning. Plants are there like eight,
9:00 in the morning. We plant, we get that planted,
we go pick, we pack, we put themon a lorry, they're sent out,
they're done. So everything is done in a day,
picked, packed lorry on on the on the table.
They can be on the table that night, some of them.
(41:05):
How would just going back to sort of relationship, how would
you compare your relationship with your father to your
relationship with your son? Unfortunately for him, pretty
similar, I would imagine. How, however, are you extra hard
on him because he's your son? Because that's not uncommon in
(41:28):
family business, Undoubtedly, Yeah.
So you. So if he was, if he wasn't your
son, you wouldn't ride him quiteas hard.
He'd been sacked. My relationship with my my
eldest son who works on the farmis yes, it's strenuous.
(41:52):
Yes. It's he'll he'll he'll voice an
opinion to me. And she's good.
Yeah. Which I want.
Yeah. And yes, I'll, I will tell him
why. And I I strive for him to be
better than me. Yeah, notice you're better than
me. Does he?
Does he want to? Does he want to be better than
(42:13):
you? Is he driven the same way as you
were driven? And do you want to?
If he is, do you want him driventhat way?
I don't want him driven how I was.
I want him driven to do the right thing.
He's going to be a dad next year.
All right. Fantastic.
So yeah, grandchild #1 let's hope it's no more.
That will change your life. That will change him.
(42:35):
That will change him. It'll change you, yeah.
And you never know, it might be the next generation of cucumber
grower of some description, I don't know.
So just to sort of finish off the the conversation in terms of
the family business dynamic, because you're there, your mum's
there, your wife's there, your son's there.
Do you all rub along well or does it ever get a little bit of
(43:00):
a out of hand? 98% of the time we're good, but
when it's busy, when it's strenuous and I tend to do the
work myself rather than employ people or try to have the money
so it stays in the family circle, yeah, it can get
(43:23):
fraught. So basically the Tardan Grumpy
syndrome kicks in. No, well, actually that's not
true. Tired and green because pretty
much tired and. Grumpy.
You're, you're grumpy all the time.
It's just sometimes you might have had some sleep.
Very when it's very tired, it's very snappy.
But I think that's just in business in general.
(43:44):
And it can be like that. But you, you just have to count
to 10, walk away, think about what you're doing and remember
why you're there. You know, I'm not a good way of
putting it. I'm not there for my own self
importance. I'm there for everybody.
What a great way of putting it. I never thought of it like that.
It's a very, a very humble way of looking it, if I might say
(44:05):
so, about a realistic way. Yeah, I would love him to
absolutely supersede and make uslook like nothing.
My father and me and my grandfather.
So he's 4th generation. But are you putting him under
the pressure to be that man? I do a little.
Yeah, I do a little. Sorry, you got to be somewhere.
(44:29):
Yeah, change tack a bit. Which restaurant or yeah, let's
say which restaurant that you have eaten in thus far would you
want to go back to and why? Can be anything, can be the
(44:55):
local chip shop, doesn't matter.The most This is why would I
want to go back to a certain restaurant that I've eaten in?
There may not be a standard one.No, there, there, there is,
there is a restaurant that there's, there's probably 2 and
(45:21):
I'm going to give you 2 and there's two separate reasons.
There is a a restaurant in London that we supply the
through through Russians who we work alongside that we went to
two years ago I believe and we was yes, you were correct at the
(45:41):
beginning. We was we was addressed as
cucumber royalty, which was. This is a fabulous day that was.
For my mum and my wife, it was just what they needed.
It was. The right thing at the right
time. Yes, to understand that
(46:02):
everything they slog their guts out for.
And like I say, she's 77 and sheis still down there packing
cucumbers with everybody else, you know, that are 2030 years
younger than her. And to to experience an
atmosphere and a dining experience with which she they
(46:28):
have never experienced. And to be truthful, neither have
I. Well, we will name check them
because I was there and it was aspectacular afternoon.
Ham yard hotel. Yeah, absolutely.
But we should, we should perhapsgive the reason as to why you
ended up there. Of course, earlier that year a
(46:49):
number of chefs from Ferndale Hotels had been to your place
and have A and had a look around.
They wanted to understand more about Marco's cucumbers and they
loved everything. And in typical firmed out hotel
star, they said right when you'dlike to please come and have
have lunch on us one of the days.
(47:11):
And that's sort of how they that's their that's how they
behave. So that's how we ended up at Ham
Yard for lunch in early Decembera couple of years ago.
Yeah, and I mean that that was the iced jam on the cake, I
suppose, or was it the cherry ontop of the the bake?
(47:31):
Well, I don't know how you describe it, but the the
restaurant going out for that meal was a recognition of their
hard work and bake. I would have loved to have just
sent them to say, look, I know I've been pretty elusive and not
around because I've been stuck in a greenhouse or, or, or
(47:52):
running around here, there and everywhere.
Enjoy. This is what you've produced.
This is what, this is what you've ended up doing after
such. Where was we going to go?
So for that, that was lovely. But when the chefs came out to
my little old glass house farm, for me that was really good.
(48:22):
Really good, Really. Pulled on the heartstrings
heavily that day. Yeah.
And. And you sent me a message later
that day. I can't remember all of it.
I could dig it, have on the phone, probably could, actually.
But the headline was if Carlsberg only made days like
this. That's right.
And I was sitting with those guys on the on the minibus going
(48:43):
back and I read it out and they all went quiet.
It was very moving, very, very, very powerful moment.
And actually why it was just fucking cucumbers.
Yeah, well, I know it was the whole deal, but it's it's good.
And I mean, as, as Fermdale Hotels did I think it's really
(49:04):
good that the, that the hotel orthe chefs or whoever, the idea,
the brain, the chart, the, the, the brain wave of this was, was
how good is it that a chef understands what they're working
with comes from? And it was quite a conversation,
an in depth conversation I had with one of the chefs.
(49:25):
And it was like he was like, well, yeah.
And I said for a grower, it's good to know of what they're
you're looking for in the kitchen.
And it's a bit like the modern housewife with the European
cucumber. Going back to smaller cucumbers.
I dare bet if they could have a bag of cucumbers which they
chucked one in the in the lunch box for themselves, their
(49:46):
husband, the children, whatever,I dare bet they'd rather pick
one of them up and fry in the lunch box.
They will stay in their slice, not making nice cucumber
sandwiches, you know what I'm saying?
So ham yard is 1. You're only supposed to be given
one choice, but as it's you, I'll give you 2.
So what's your second choice? There's a so this is a bit
switchy. I would like to go to.
(50:06):
There's a in Bedonia in Italy, northern Italy, there is a
restaurant called Ilopico, a trattoria on a windy mountain
Rd. There is no menu, it is whatever
they want to cook that day. And you can sit there and look
over the valley and as you look along the valley, it is probably
(50:31):
as beautiful or in my mind more beautiful than the Tuscan,
Tuscan scenery. The food, the service is unreal.
The wine is made by the hotel, by the, by the restaurant
owners. Even at the end the, the
apparent, not apparative, the digestive, what they give you
the apparative at the beginning homemade and the digestive, as
(50:53):
they call it at the end homemade.
And I would like to take go backthere with those chefs that gave
me the opportunity at, at at theHammyard Hotel.
Because my ex wisdom was be was going to be.
So who would you go back there with and why?
Which you've just answered. It no, no that I I would like to
(51:14):
return the opportunity to them for what they gave me to say.
This is why I like what you did,because this guy makes his own
wine, makes his own liqueurs andeverything.
The food's all locally sourced. It's a kind of how I think it
should be that the the chef should understand what he's
(51:37):
working with and where it comes from.
And to be fair, you're the grower.
It's good if the grower can understand what the end product
is and what they're looking for.Taste, texture, the whole lot.
Well, if they you want to be careful now because if be
careful what you wish for, because if these, if these lads
listen to this, they're going tobe all over it like a rash and
go OK Marco, when we're going becareful what you wish.
(51:58):
For I'd gladly do it so. It's either of the restaurants
you've mentioned. Is there anybody, alive or dead
that you would go back there with the why?
So not a restaurant, no. No, if I could have any choice
(52:20):
of anything in the world, I would like to go back to my
nan's house with my grandparents.
This is really hard and. Take a moment if you want, it's
fine. Yeah, give us a minute.
Fine. It's fine.
I would like to go back to my nan's kitchen with all my
(52:42):
grandparents, all my aunties anduncles all sitting there just
like it used to be. But unfortunately, in my memory
that was very, very faint because my mum's dad passed away
when I was seven. Yeah, but I remember us all
being around there, all drinkingwine, all drinking this what I
thought was little glasses of water, which was something that
(53:02):
they distilled in the garden shed.
Moonshine. Yeah, that's it.
And extremely black, dark, strong coffee.
Well, I'm sure the bloody spoon stood up in the coffee.
I'm sure it did. And with a clearview of how it
would have ended up right to sayI tried my best.
(53:31):
You get me at it again. Now, that's twice.
So now for somebody who is generally considered to be
emotionally bankrupt or constipated, he's doing a
cracking job on me here. Yeah.
Well, I think that could be a good place to finish because it
doesn't get any better than that.
So what? Thank you so much for coming and
(53:53):
talking to us. I mean, I've got no idea where
we're going to go, where we wenttoday.
And I just think it's fantastic.What a great, what a great
story, what a really strong human element that's run through
it. And I think I know you a little
bit better than that. I did.
I've seen a side of you that I didn't know was there, which is
(54:15):
great. And I think it's fantastic.
And I I really, really admire you for bearing your soul.
So Marco Caffarelli, thank you very much.
Thank you. Oh, sorry about that.
Thanks for listening to Supply. Please subscribe wherever you
get your podcasts and follow Supply Podcast on Instagram,
where we'd love to get your questions and suggestions for
(54:36):
future guests. See you next time.
This is hard. I want to be different.
I like to be different and it was like a rabbit in headlights.
A very hard lesson if you want to get on in this life.
I grow with my heart. What a great way of putting it,
I never thought of it like that.Absolutely stubborn and I went
for it. Oh, precious, precious.
Moments you'll never get unpacked.
It's quite moving. Oh, sorry about that.
(00:23):
Welcome to Supplied, the podcastabout how fresh food gets to us
from the people who produce it, move it and cook it.
I'm Rob Burton. I've spent over 45 years both
growing and then supplying fruitinvades and some of Britain's
top restaurants. Now I get the chance to talk to
people behind the food we eat from specialist growers,
committed suppliers and meesing style kitchens.
We'll hear how they got started,why they do what they do and the
(00:46):
lessons they've learned along the way.
So whether you work in fresh food or just care where yours
come from, you're in the right place.
This podcast is made possible byFresher, the order management
platform that helps food supplies run smoother, faster
and smarter operations. Now let's get into the episode.
Today, my guest is Marco Caffarelli, who is the third
(01:06):
generation of the family in 60 years involved in growing based
on floral farming island near Cambridge.
He and his family specialised ingrowing cucumbers.
The family has been given the name of cucumber royalty by the
chefs at Ferndale Hotels simply because their cucumbers taste
like cucumbers should. I think it's fair to say that
Marco has an interesting tale ortwo to tell us today, along with
(01:29):
helping us understand more aboutwhat it takes to produce a truly
stunning cucumber as against onethat is just about OK.
Marco, welcome. Thank you for coming.
Not a problem. So should we start with, should
we start with the family history?
Where does that? Where does that take us back to?
OK, yeah, so my father came he over from Italy with his
(01:53):
parents. Well, my granddad was a prisoner
of war in London or Broxbourne in London, and it was the age of
19. And back then if you came over
you had to go straight to work. And he went to work making kerb
stones during the week and in the evenings and at weekends he
(02:15):
worked on a nursery doing the tomatoes and cucumbers.
Whereabouts, What area? A roundabout, I think it was
whole lane around that area, thewhat is known as the Lee van.
Yeah. He was around the Tyler's Cross.
All them sort of areas. They were, they were even flower
nurseries or food nurseries, youknow, cucumbers, tomatoes and
(02:37):
stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, If my message is
correctly, there's a lot of Italian families ended up in the
Lee Valley area, is that right? Yeah, in this well renowned as
the Lee Valley. Yeah, Italy, I think they used
to call it at times as well. So that's how he got his
involvement with, with growing. Yeah.
He so he, he started there and he worked with, unbeknown to
(03:00):
him, what would have been his father-in-law and my dad.
So my mum's dad and his dad, they worked on a nursery.
They then rented a nursery a fewyears later.
Then after about three years they then went and bought a
(03:20):
nursery together, which was nearcoincidentally Tesco's first
head office was next door to thehead.
So they bought that. And then after a couple of years
my 2 grandparents decided that that was not for them because it
was hard work. Back in them days it was straw
bales, it was all sorts of stuff.
Small convention was hard work. So dad carried on and then from
(03:46):
there he then moved on to another nursery and from that
one it was OK. But we lived in Chesson and he
had to travel every day and it was like a 40 minute drive.
And he got, he got fed up with that, didn't want that because
he didn't see the family. My mum had her own hairdressing
(04:07):
salon in Chesson. So they had a discussion and
they looked for somewhere where they could live and work on the
same site. So in 1979 the.
So you'd be about 30 then, yeah.But you was near retirement age
by then I would imagine. But it's OK.
So they then, they then found this place in Iceland, in
(04:33):
Cambridgeshire, which was a dream for them, an absolute
shock for me because I'd gone from living in a, a city or city
environment into the absolute middle of nowhere it felt.
Like and so how? Old were you at this .08 or 9
years old? So it was a bit of a shock for
me, not for them. And and that became Floral Farm.
(04:59):
The first year my father grew tomatoes on this nursery, didn't
like it because he knew his cucumbers.
So then the following year he changed everything and went onto
cucumbers. And was it called Floral Farm
then or? Yeah, it was called Floral Farm
then because originally it was acarnation nursery.
(05:20):
OK. So that's that's why it's called
Floral Farm. And that's why the glass House
were there, yeah. Yeah.
And then that's when it started.And was it sort of fit for
purpose and ready to go or was the work needed doing to?
Absolutely not. He bought the the farm off the
bank because unfortunately it itdidn't work out for the previous
(05:42):
owner. And so it was in need of a lot
of work. The bungalow, what we, what my
parents moved in, what we moved into had been empty for five or
six years. Some local people tried to keep
it going for on behalf of the Bank of what was going on, which
was good of them and they did a good job of it.
(06:04):
But obviously it's not theirs and it needed a lot of work.
So. And it was a lot of work, a lot,
a lot of work, a lot of hours. I used to make it fit for
purpose, fit for purpose to try and earn a living.
The years were hard. I remember them vividly.
We, we worked as a, as a family really did.
(06:27):
So I'd go to school, come home from school and this would be at
9-10 years old, I'd have to go down and and help out whether it
was back in then days you made the boxes or in the greenhouse
moving stuff, you know, and things like that.
Just out of interest, so going back to that, in terms of yield
then and yield now, what's the difference?
(06:53):
As in terms of cucumber sticks, I couldn't really tell you
because there's no record of theother cucumber stick back then.
As in terms of a growing season where I could tell you that the
cucumbers was was not planted until March, late March and then
(07:15):
you'd be finished in September, sometime in September.
So you planted in late March. When did you first start
cropping? Be about four weeks back then,
but that was after you'd put allthe straw bales in, wrote what
you'd have to. You'd have to steam the glass
house, disinfect it, steam it. Then when that was done, the
whole greenhouse would be rotavated again.
(07:38):
And in the early years it was a one the quarter acre block and
before my dad built some more and he used to rate it, rotavate
it. If you've ever seen him at a
Honda, not a Mary Tiller rotavator done about a metre at
a time. And about 110 foot wide
greenhouse. So up and down we'd go.
And I used to do it as well withhim.
(08:00):
So OK, so there's not a record there, but what would you gut
feel be in terms of percentage terms, You know, like if, if, if
zero was the number, then in terms of percentage, what, what
how's the how's the increase? What is the increase in product?
So we. Do now about 1,000,000 to 1.2
million sticks a year. I would say back then we'd be
(08:24):
lucky if we'd done probably 150,000 sticks.
Goodness me, it's a massive jump.
It's a massive extended season now as well.
So your season then was plantingin late March, start cropping 4
weeks after. What does that look like now?
Now, so this, this growing season, which is 25 and for the
(08:46):
first time ever, I decided aftera long conversation with my
plant producer, my like that propagates my seeds, that I
would like to start a little bitquicker, a bit sooner to keep
my, my clients happy because they want my cucumbers and they
get pretty, pretty moany when they have to keep relying on
(09:08):
foreign imports. They don't want it correct.
So I I planted cucumbers in December 2024 on the 30th of
December. Right and started cropping those
when? About the 7th of February we
started cropping, which was a bit not as quick as I wanted,
but we had unusually dull weather, so it didn't go how it
(09:29):
wanted. So it's been up till now.
Thus, it's been a long season already.
Yeah. And go from them.
But if you want to go back to what we used to do years ago,
the greenhouse, when the cucumbers were finished in
September, we used to plant halfa million round cabbies,
lettuces in that greenhouse. All right, So I can tell you
(09:51):
that in two weeks that was cut, picked, gone.
So my mum, my dad, me getting off the bus and making these
flaming lettuce boxes every night and they'd have lights up
and another worker that do his standard out here 40 hours a
week back then. And in two weeks that was cut,
gone and sold. Amazing.
(10:12):
So after Christmas, everything started for the cucumber season.
And obviously, I mean for the, perhaps for the benefit of our
listeners is that cucumbers needheat.
But they need lots of heat, lotsof light.
Yeah, you can, you can do what you want, but you'll never beat
nature. Yeah.
So are the. I mean, obviously heating can be
artificial. What about do you use artificial
(10:34):
lighting? No, I don't use artificial
lighting, but about 1213 years ago, 12 years ago to be precise,
I installed a biomass system. At that time my father was very
ill, very, very ill actually. And so I took it upon myself to
(10:55):
install a biomass heating systemso I could burn wood and straw
because the price of oil, because we was on oil was
horrendous. It wasn't working.
So we wouldn't have been there to this day if we hadn't have,
if I hadn't have made that radical change and and done
(11:16):
that. So we run 2 biomass boilers now
to run on straw, locally sourcedstraw and wood and we also have
a a quite an array of solar panels on the roofs of the
buildings to try and help with the electricity costs as well.
So you so have you always? Actually, no.
(11:38):
Better question, why do your cucumbers taste like a cucumber
should? Now you don't need to give any
trade secrets away if you don't want to, but there is a
difference because I've done blind tastings myself and with
customers and it just OK. From the outside it looks like
they both look like cucumbers, but one has got a distinctly
more cucumber taste than the other.
(11:59):
Why? I would say there's several
reasons. I'm taught with cucumbers from
learning a crop, so I've I went to college.
(12:22):
I knew more than the tutors whenI was at college.
What specifically a horticultural?
I went to a horticultural, agricultural college.
The problem when I got there wasI knew more than most because
I've been around growing stuff all my life.
So I I've grown Peppers, aubergines, everything.
I've more or less grown anything.
I had once done a big array of abird of paradise.
(12:44):
Have you ever seen the we, we'vedone them there.
I can't remember. I couldn't tell you, but we grew
them. So this was all before I was 16
and I went to college. The problem was I knew more than
what I was being taught. So I went off and I learned how
to things so I can, I can do nursery stock, I can do
amenities. So I learnt how to bud and graft
(13:05):
on trees, apples and all that roses.
So I ended up doing a lot of other stuff other than what I
was specifically supposed to do.Yeah, because I just knew so
much. So I'm, I'm what you would call
a grower. So I grow, grow by feel.
I grow a bit what I see, but what I know my cucumbers are
(13:28):
different. They are different.
There's no disbelief in that. Even though I can't eat
cucumber, they give me horrific indigestion.
Really. Yeah.
But I, the cucumber grower, doesn't eat the cucumber.
Yeah, that's how it is. Yeah, I'm afraid so.
But I can tell you without a taste test.
I can tell you from a smell testwhich one's mine and which one
isn't so. From a smell.
(13:49):
Just by the smell of them. So there was a story once
hovering around that our cucumbers made it onto one of
the Q&R boats. Actually, we've made a few boats
in our time, big, big noise boats as well.
So we we was on there and apparently the chef stopped
everyone in the kitchen and asked what the smell was.
(14:11):
And it was, does that actually smell like a cucumber?
And that kind of that, that got that, that message got relayed
back to us, which was quite niceto hear.
Huge cumbers, isn't it? Yeah, it is.
And then this year, the South Pole expedition, a friend of a
friend who knew me was on there and was walking through the
kitchen and saw a cucumber box that said Caffrey cucumbers in
(14:34):
the South Pole. So that was quite nice as well.
On the Saint Avidan Borough boat.
I've got the pictures and all that.
They all got sent to me, so it'sgood.
So. But what makes mine taste?
I'm a grower. Yeah.
So I grow. I don't want to grow something
that you can pick up anywhere and everywhere.
I want to be different. I like to be different.
(14:54):
None of us are under any illusions that you are fucking
different. Don't you know a kid?
So we grow attentively. We're not a massive concern so
we grow slightly steadier, don'tover force and you get a little
bit more of a naturalness to theflavour and that's what it is.
(15:18):
And that's all that really is. That is as well as Saturn
knowing what your plants doing. Every day, twice a day I spend
time walking around and looking and I can walk through a crop A
quieter pace and tell you exactly what's going on.
By now by from years ago when I was a kid remembering my dad was
straw bales and that when he used to pull the straw Bale
(15:40):
about, get a fork and it'd be like 8 feet away from where this
plant was growing, he'd dig the ground and to see what the roots
were doing in the soil underneath.
So that's that's how I learned root is just knowing what you're
growing. Yeah, experience and feel,
having that feel. And that's you can't teach feel.
(16:01):
You just you just feel it. Yeah, just.
I know it sounds ridiculous. Yeah, I know.
I just know what I'm doing. It's like a chef saying, you
know, when they cook something, how do they know that taste in
it? Yeah, they know what they've
done. Yeah.
Yeah. Going back to the growing cycle,
so assuming that light and heat are so important and I'm
(16:21):
guessing so the growing cycle islonger for those ones you
planted on the 30th of December.So what's the shortest?
So when conditions are absolutely perfect from time of
planting to time of cropping, how quick can it be?
What's the other extreme? So it can, it ranges, really.
So it ranges how you treat the plant, what you do, what the
(16:41):
weather's doing, you know. So if you've got extreme heat,
ironically, cucumbers have been a hot house plant that's been,
you know, hot greenhouses and that and over the years have
bred them so that they grow slightly cooler so you don't
have to pump all the heating into them.
And now we've got this supposedly global warming
business going on. So cucumbers a lot when it's
(17:04):
really hot, 30°, they don't likeit yet.
I remember as a kid, if it was 30°, my dad was jumping for joy
in the greenhouse. This is what they want.
So it's it's contrast, but the quickest I personally have
produced from 18 inch tall plantto pick in the 1st cucumbers 12
days. But as a rule that's perfect
(17:27):
conditions perfect with a perfect grower obviously like
me. So as a rule everyone in the
industry says about 3 weeks, butit is achievable to do it
quicker. We've talked about heating, and
you've just touched upon the fact that they don't like it
when it's too hot to milk. Can you cool?
(17:48):
Can you reduce the temperature abit over above opening the
windows? No Scarlets.
No, only if you shade the glass with like a lime wash, they'll
shade it. You can shade the glass and sort
of, you know, it gives an effectof shading, but it's still hot
in there. But then on the other side of
it, you need a light as well. So it's a bit of a thing now
(18:09):
that now we have like thermal screens that you can pull across
when it's too hot, which just calms it down a little bit.
And then obviously in the wintermonths, you plant early, the
screens are shut when it's cold.And when it's a bright cold day,
you put the heating on, open thescreens up like a like a, like a
Roman blind really, but a horizontal 1, and it opens up
and lets the sunlight in. So you were involved obviously
(18:33):
from a very young age. You mentioned sort of 910 years
old. So when you finished your
education, did you then go straight into it or did you?
Absolutely not why I was not allowed?
Not allowed. Why?
No, They got you worked out. Yeah, yeah, My father knew me
(18:54):
pretty well actually. My, my, my dad and, and we could
have really good proper conversations at times.
And he said that it would it, it'd be best that you worked
somewhere else and learnt what it's like to work under
(19:14):
somebody, whereas you can't family business, you can
manipulate and also it can also be the other way around
completely. So I had to go off and work
somewhere else for about a year,a year I went and of all the
places I went and worked in a scrap yard in Newmarket.
(19:36):
It was the biggest scrap yard inthe country at the time.
Why did you choose a scrap yard?What drew you to that?
Well, because mate got me a job to be fair.
With you, so it was basically you couldn't get a job anywhere
else. You wasn't.
There it was easy. It was absolutely easy.
Everybody wanted me, but I, I chose.
I could imagine queuing around the block.
Oh yeah. Undoubtedly.
(19:56):
So I went there. I went as a shunter train
driver. So I had the little Thomas the
Tank Engine that I drove around this yard, driving these bins
around and which I used to put the scrap metal in all these.
Older generation X travellers ifyou like, and when they told you
(20:17):
to pick up something that weighed 60 odd kilos, if you
didn't pick it up, you knew about it so you picked it up.
A very a very hard lesson of howyou will work if you want to get
on in this life. Didn't do you any harm though,
I'd wager. Absolutely not the the industry
(20:41):
if you want to go on to how it goes in, in other ways, the
industry, what I do now is hard work, hard hours, hard work.
And when I worked with these menwho some are still alive today,
but crazily enough, I'm friends with their children and their
(21:01):
grandchildren. I've been to weddings and also
because I've got on so well withthese men.
And those were the people that you were working with.
These scrap yards, yeah. And they weren't my bosses.
They were just people that worked in this scrap yard.
And when you pick something up and don't you fuck around and
grow up, stop being a little child and pick it up.
You worked. You seriously worked.
(21:22):
And you knew you'd done. You'd done a day shift.
And if you was 2 minutes late, you was docked quarter of an
hour pace. So you was never 2 minutes late.
1 minute late was acceptable. 2 minutes was.
So it was a hard grounding, a really hard grounding.
And like I say, still friends. I'm 56 now and I was 17 at the
(21:43):
time. 18, still friends with thefamilies to this day, several of
them as well. So you did that what say for
about a year? Yeah, nearly a year.
It was nearly a year. And then did you then go?
And back to the And then the conversation came the.
What do you want to do? You're obviously quite happy
(22:03):
there. Yeah.
Train driver, crane driver, you know, all sorts of things fit
any. I was everything and anything.
What do you want to do? So it was a bit of a
conversation and I decided to come.
And whether it's as farming goes, it's impregnated from
(22:27):
birth that that son is going to take over the family farm, same
as the cucumber farm. I think if you talk to the other
cucumber growers, it's the same thing.
To Mars, the whole lot. So basically you are going to be
this grower because you're the son.
So I went to work for a dad. You're right, but I mean I was,
(22:48):
our family business was farming and my father said to me on
several occasions. You don't need to do this.
You don't have to do this, but Iwanted to do it and that he did
try very hard to put me off. And that was another
conversation that we had going back then.
He was like to be here is good, but look to do, look to do if
(23:13):
you can see to do if you can do something else because you've
got all this land, you've got everything here.
If and he said if you want to make money, become a landscaper.
He was he wasn't far wrong really.
So he he was putting you under no pressure at all.
No to join the family business. I wanted to supersede what he'd
(23:35):
done. We do better than what he.
Most definitely I wanted to. It was hard because he was a
self-made man from a very hard life.
So obviously you can imagine that.
Did that was your hard? Did you, did that put you under
a lot of, did you put yourself under a lot of pressure because
you wanted to be what he'd achieved?
It was both pressure. I mean, we could probably do the
(23:58):
work of four blokes just the twoof us.
Yes, we, you know, you'd put a shift in a hard shift.
You'd be down, you'd be down there at 4:00 in the morning.
If we didn't come in, we might come in at 1:00 and have a bite
to eat because you'd go in the house and you'd sit at a table
and eat. But you'd only have a like half
an hour, 40 minutes and then probably not not come in that
(24:21):
evening till about 6/7, 8:00, maybe even later sometimes.
Sounds like you and your dad hada really good relationship and a
good working relationship. We we had a decent relationship.
We had a severely enviable working relationship, I would
(24:45):
say in the area and in, I think to this day with my family as we
are as a business, we, we have got an envy of how we work and
how we think. And it's kind of like I'm proud
to be a super, super hard worker, but I'm also under no
(25:07):
illusions it will have a price to pay at some stage and has had
a price to pay with children growing up.
I mean, I've got four children. I've got two boys, 2 girls.
They. Involved.
One's involved when one's havinga bad day at work it wants to be
involved in. Otherwise it's, you know, grass
is greener on the other side. The eldest one, he's involved
(25:30):
and he he does remind me of me as in the hours he will put in
not in every way. So we, we are, we are known for
the work we put into what we do locally and I think pretty much
everywhere else, we keep things to ourselves.
(25:52):
So me and my dad had a relationship and it was a
typical probably working for your father in a family
relationship. It was up and down but in terms
of work we could really work andI think in some respects I over
pressured myself in the early years to be as good or better.
(26:15):
Yeah, I can relate to that. Yeah.
And was that achievable then? Probably not how things were
then. And then my while that was going
on, my, my dad's father died andthe grandparents when I was
young was a big influence on life, you know, so and he really
(26:39):
done my both my grandparents, but one died was very young.
But, but dad's dad, he was, he was big.
I used to go with him on the allotments and and things like
he was a very true green fingered grower.
So he died and then things kind of knocked into place and I come
back and then. But Dad, there was some worrying
signs that didn't seem correct. Right, in terms of his health.
(27:03):
Yeah, so he had a pacemaker and bits and bobs, extremely high
blood pressure for a long while,which he didn't even know he'd
got. So he'd gotten enlarged heart.
So as as the come work back working for the family, as as
the years rolled on. And then probably be 15 years
ago now, he at the age of 65, hedeveloped Alzheimer's quite
(27:27):
heavily. All of a sudden it came on.
So I was thrown into the drivingseat and it was like a rabbit in
headlights. How old were you at that point,
4038? Yeah, 3840, something like that.
So then you had to step up and be the man.
(27:49):
Yeah. And I didn't.
You didn't. I struggled, OK, I I did, I did
the industry there's that point.The industry was turning the
rate of not so your Tesco's werepopping up and and saying be out
of town building was getting more and more.
So the supermarkets were dominating the trade which was
(28:12):
eroding your traditional customer base.
So our traditional customer basewas wholesalers, market stalls,
fruit and veg shop, traditional green grocers and they were
dropping like flies. And I didn't really know what to
do. So it was a bit of a where are
we going? And, and to be fair with you, I
(28:32):
struggled and, and wasn't doing great.
And then it's sort of like all sort of things happened.
My dad died and it was a case of, well, if you want to do what
you always said you was going todo, you better pull your bloody
(28:53):
socks up Marco and crack on here.
So I picked myself up, had a chat in the mirror, had a look
at everything, my children, my wife, my poor mother and I.
I took this thing where I was going to succeed and I was not
(29:20):
under any circumstances or anything, even at the expense of
my family. I think my mentality was at that
time I was going to pull it through.
So you were very single minded in your approach.
I was needed to be. Absolutely stubborn pig Genghis
Khan ignorant and I went for it.With the benefit of hindsight,
(29:40):
would you change any of that? What my life has in general.
No, you're that single minded approach because you mentioned
it possibly to the Detroit of your family, yes.
I would change that. I probably wouldn't have.
I wouldn't have that now, but I'm quite fortunate that my
wife, who was a single parent for a few years and and had been
(30:05):
quite I'll herself with a with aback operation stuck by me and
my mother, who's now 67, put in the effort with her and the
kids. We've done what we could, done
how we could, and. And are you?
Would I have done it different? I don't know.
(30:26):
Yes, I would have done. Knowing what I know now, yes.
It's the same old story, isn't it?
If I knew back then what I knew now, I'd be a billionaire and
not. Yeah, I mean 20/20/20
Hindsight's magnificent. I, I don't regret anything I've
ever done because actually it's a very negative emotion as far
as I'm concerned, because actually the bottom line is I
(30:47):
can't change it. Hopefully I've learnt from some
of it, but I can't change it. So I'm not going to beat myself
about the bad decisions I've made because you make a
decision, you believe if you're right at the time, that's best
you can do. I'm whether I was fortunate or
unfortunate, I don't know. So I came from a father that was
(31:07):
really hard working. Maybe to this day, I think the
right decision was to go to thisscrap metal yard with a, with a
bunch of blokes that worked hard.
They were like navvies, you know, that was and so in my, my,
my set now is you have to put a shift in.
(31:27):
I'm not blessed with O levels, alevels and university degrees.
I think it's a a thing that's what's been installed into
people today then, but I don't think it's a necessity of life.
I've always said if you've got abit of a brain about you and
you're willing to work, you'll always put food on your table
and more. I'm with you on that.
(31:48):
I mean, if you if you say speaking as a non parent, if you
say to to people who've got kids, what's the one thing you
really want to give your kids? And generally the most popular
answer is I want to give them a great education.
Fuck off. Give them the work ethic.
Give them a life. Because I know people with list
of qualifications as long as they're on they got a pot to
piss in. I also know plenty of people who
have got no qualifications. They do have a work ethic.
(32:11):
There's always bread on the table, there's always a roof
over the head and there always will be.
Thanks to Fresho for sponsoring this episode.
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And it's all backed with 24/7 support so you get help when you
(32:34):
really need it. To find out more, go to
fresho.com. So earlier on you asked me about
why my cucumbers are different. What's the secret?
The secret is a little bit in the growing of steady as she
goes a little bit. But in all honesty, if you want
(32:55):
to know the secret of why I growthe cucumber I grow.
A few years ago there was big mega sites of glass being built
huge and at that point I wanted to expand slightly and when
these big massive blocks of glass were going up, I decided
(33:18):
not to do it because I figured that it would knock the industry
for six. And what overproduction?
Oh yeah, just basically because overproduction.
But this a little Dutch man thatI, I can talk to and get on well
with and and he's not a grower, but he works in the industry.
(33:41):
He's actually a Glazer, repairs the house in greenhouses.
He said to me, I don't know whatyou're worrying about.
They're not growers, manufacturers.
Yeah, he said you, you have got an absolutely nothing to worry
about. So I didn't listen to him,
unfortunately, and I didn't expand, but I grow.
(34:08):
This is hard. I grow with my heart.
I. Get it?
Yeah, I'm with you all the way on that.
I get it. And it's when you start thinking
about it, it's quite it's quite moving.
And I think back to when I was akid and indeed when I left saw I
started work going round the farm with my dad.
Oh, precious, precious moments. Yes.
(34:31):
He you'll never get back. No, he was.
You've got me at it now, you twat.
Yeah, my father. Yeah, he was a big thing in my
life. He finished up shooting himself
when he was 61. We're not going to go down that
particular. It was the wires and wherefores.
But he was a huge person of my life.
(34:52):
But the treasured moments were going with him round the farm
generally on a Sunday morning because the only time we really
got time to do it and him givingme the pearls of wisdom, and I
mean the one thing that stands out in my mind, we just got a
lot of peas, fresh peas handpicked.
Peas. You know, and, and at it's peak
(35:13):
you'd have two or 300 pickers inthe field, which was hard going.
Oh yeah, yeah, very hard. The one thing he said if you
really want to judge how good your peas are, give them give
when they're picked and in the net, as they were in those days,
He said just give them a little squeeze with your hand and if
they're squeaky said they're talking to you, He said that's
wrong. I said, and that's when they're
good. He said if you give them a
squeeze and nothing comes, he says they're wrong.
(35:35):
Things like that. Still with me.
But it is hugely emotional because you bury your heart and
soul and everything into it. It takes all of you.
Yeah, Yeah. You're you're imprisoned.
I can't think what the words are, but.
But is it imprisoned? It's because it's it's what?
I wanted to do, yeah. Then then is it a prison?
No, because you could have if you're.
(35:56):
I think it's the it's the self-employed employed kind of
scenario with other people in other jobs, isn't it?
It's up, you're employed, but you're self-employed working on
a farm. It's up to you how good you want
to do your job. And, and I, and I want, I like,
it's really nice to be known that you cannot buy these
(36:18):
cucumbers, what I produce anywhere.
And they are different. And I really love growing
different types of cucumber. I get really, I mean, the
trouble is I find growing cucumbers boring, if I'm
brutally honest with you. Yeah, you need a challenge.
I do need a challenge. So I grow different types of
speciality cues, white ones, little things ones.
(36:39):
I've grown what A1 for woks, which was an Asian cucumber for
stir fries. The only person in the country
to do it. Only person in Europe was
growing for a while, but they discontinued it because it
didn't take off. I understand that.
Then I now I grow these really small ones that are probably
half the size of your little finger and people go blinking.
(37:00):
Madam, if you want to know, I'm going to sit here as like with
my crystal ball on the table. And I think the future in
cucumbers is not what you'd calla standard European cucumber.
How do you say it them? I see it as smaller cucumbers.
I see it as you can get snack ones.
Yeah, which big is your thumb kind of scenario, these little
(37:23):
mini ones. And also they call them portion
cucumbers, which are about half the size or a little bit under
that. I think that's where it'll go.
But I think the biggest trend will probably be the smaller
cucumbers because it's lobby in a, in a, in a box, you know,
with the, the husband goes to work or the husband's pack or
the mail, whoever is doing a pack up, rather than sitting
(37:46):
there, slice, slice, slice. They'll just go, yeah, Chuck one
in, Chuck one in. It's a bit like today that it's
a treat to give your child. Go to a drive through and fill
it for the poison. Yeah, yeah, that's a good thing.
Is it? You know.
But because society tells you today that there's no time to go
home and prepare a meal. Absolute rubbish.
(38:07):
There is time come to come to myworld and work my hours and tell
me there's no time to prepare a meal.
I can do it, you know. Interesting.
So are you based on that's how you see the future, are you
thinking of going down that particular route into
production, so taking less out, producing slightly less of your,
(38:29):
shall we say, standard cucumbersand going down that route
because I know you've been growing these, these snack ones
for a while. Yeah.
At present, no, but just keepingmy my ears, ears and eyes and my
nose on what's going on. Yeah, I think probably be
another 5 or 6 years and we might see a trend backing.
(38:51):
I mean the supermarket is and I hate supermarkets.
Sorry what the fuck should put abutton there?
The supermarket is a bit like a telling you what the perfect
piece of fruit, vegetable, meat,whatever it is looks like.
So untrue, it's so untrue. So it's whether the supermarkets
(39:16):
or the next buyer going down theline likes these things and
thinks, do you know what, we're going to start pushing these and
that's what they'll do. And then they'll come up with
sales techniques and techniques and stuff like that.
You know, like they, I don't know if you're aware of it, but
breweries, pubs like Green King and, and all them.
They're doing this thing now. The breweries are available
(39:38):
well. I can't remember them.
So they're changing the glasses so how a pint glass feels every
so often, every sort of like 8 months they're sending new ones
out because they feel different.So it's, it's interesting, it's.
Clever. It's very clever.
It's working out human behaviour, what it responds to.
(40:00):
So that's what they're doing. So it's about whether the
supermarkets want to go this way.
I think they will, but we'll see.
But there. But there's one thing with them
small cucumbers, there's more work than a standard cucumber.
A lot. More wine shows you the
harvesting. Harvesting, training them, you
know, and you, you still have to, you know, I think we put, we
(40:23):
put a crop in in January or, or December, March, that crop comes
out. We disinfect the greenhouse, we
clean it all down. We then plant another crop.
So we normally turn around 8000 plants in a day out cleaned.
Next day we wash. We we give it an extra clean.
Yeah. After that, plants come the
(40:44):
following morning. Plants are there like eight,
9:00 in the morning. We plant, we get that planted,
we go pick, we pack, we put themon a lorry, they're sent out,
they're done. So everything is done in a day,
picked, packed lorry on on the on the table.
They can be on the table that night, some of them.
(41:05):
How would just going back to sort of relationship, how would
you compare your relationship with your father to your
relationship with your son? Unfortunately for him, pretty
similar, I would imagine. How, however, are you extra hard
on him because he's your son? Because that's not uncommon in
(41:28):
family business, Undoubtedly, Yeah.
So you. So if he was, if he wasn't your
son, you wouldn't ride him quiteas hard.
He'd been sacked. My relationship with my my
eldest son who works on the farmis yes, it's strenuous.
(41:52):
Yes. It's he'll he'll he'll voice an
opinion to me. And she's good.
Yeah. Which I want.
Yeah. And yes, I'll, I will tell him
why. And I I strive for him to be
better than me. Yeah, notice you're better than
me. Does he?
Does he want to? Does he want to be better than
(42:13):
you? Is he driven the same way as you
were driven? And do you want to?
If he is, do you want him driventhat way?
I don't want him driven how I was.
I want him driven to do the right thing.
He's going to be a dad next year.
All right. Fantastic.
So yeah, grandchild #1 let's hope it's no more.
That will change your life. That will change him.
(42:35):
That will change him. It'll change you, yeah.
And you never know, it might be the next generation of cucumber
grower of some description, I don't know.
So just to sort of finish off the the conversation in terms of
the family business dynamic, because you're there, your mum's
there, your wife's there, your son's there.
Do you all rub along well or does it ever get a little bit of
(43:00):
a out of hand? 98% of the time we're good, but
when it's busy, when it's strenuous and I tend to do the
work myself rather than employ people or try to have the money
so it stays in the family circle, yeah, it can get
(43:23):
fraught. So basically the Tardan Grumpy
syndrome kicks in. No, well, actually that's not
true. Tired and green because pretty
much tired and. Grumpy.
You're, you're grumpy all the time.
It's just sometimes you might have had some sleep.
Very when it's very tired, it's very snappy.
But I think that's just in business in general.
(43:44):
And it can be like that. But you, you just have to count
to 10, walk away, think about what you're doing and remember
why you're there. You know, I'm not a good way of
putting it. I'm not there for my own self
importance. I'm there for everybody.
What a great way of putting it. I never thought of it like that.
It's a very, a very humble way of looking it, if I might say
(44:05):
so, about a realistic way. Yeah, I would love him to
absolutely supersede and make uslook like nothing.
My father and me and my grandfather.
So he's 4th generation. But are you putting him under
the pressure to be that man? I do a little.
Yeah, I do a little. Sorry, you got to be somewhere.
(44:29):
Yeah, change tack a bit. Which restaurant or yeah, let's
say which restaurant that you have eaten in thus far would you
want to go back to and why? Can be anything, can be the
(44:55):
local chip shop, doesn't matter.The most This is why would I
want to go back to a certain restaurant that I've eaten in?
There may not be a standard one.No, there, there, there is,
there is a restaurant that there's, there's probably 2 and
(45:21):
I'm going to give you 2 and there's two separate reasons.
There is a a restaurant in London that we supply the
through through Russians who we work alongside that we went to
two years ago I believe and we was yes, you were correct at the
(45:41):
beginning. We was we was addressed as
cucumber royalty, which was. This is a fabulous day that was.
For my mum and my wife, it was just what they needed.
It was. The right thing at the right
time. Yes, to understand that
(46:02):
everything they slog their guts out for.
And like I say, she's 77 and sheis still down there packing
cucumbers with everybody else, you know, that are 2030 years
younger than her. And to to experience an
atmosphere and a dining experience with which she they
(46:28):
have never experienced. And to be truthful, neither have
I. Well, we will name check them
because I was there and it was aspectacular afternoon.
Ham yard hotel. Yeah, absolutely.
But we should, we should perhapsgive the reason as to why you
ended up there. Of course, earlier that year a
(46:49):
number of chefs from Ferndale Hotels had been to your place
and have A and had a look around.
They wanted to understand more about Marco's cucumbers and they
loved everything. And in typical firmed out hotel
star, they said right when you'dlike to please come and have
have lunch on us one of the days.
(47:11):
And that's sort of how they that's their that's how they
behave. So that's how we ended up at Ham
Yard for lunch in early Decembera couple of years ago.
Yeah, and I mean that that was the iced jam on the cake, I
suppose, or was it the cherry ontop of the the bake?
(47:31):
Well, I don't know how you describe it, but the the
restaurant going out for that meal was a recognition of their
hard work and bake. I would have loved to have just
sent them to say, look, I know I've been pretty elusive and not
around because I've been stuck in a greenhouse or, or, or
(47:52):
running around here, there and everywhere.
Enjoy. This is what you've produced.
This is what, this is what you've ended up doing after
such. Where was we going to go?
So for that, that was lovely. But when the chefs came out to
my little old glass house farm, for me that was really good.
(48:22):
Really good, Really. Pulled on the heartstrings
heavily that day. Yeah.
And. And you sent me a message later
that day. I can't remember all of it.
I could dig it, have on the phone, probably could, actually.
But the headline was if Carlsberg only made days like
this. That's right.
And I was sitting with those guys on the on the minibus going
(48:43):
back and I read it out and they all went quiet.
It was very moving, very, very, very powerful moment.
And actually why it was just fucking cucumbers.
Yeah, well, I know it was the whole deal, but it's it's good.
And I mean, as, as Fermdale Hotels did I think it's really
(49:04):
good that the, that the hotel orthe chefs or whoever, the idea,
the brain, the chart, the, the, the brain wave of this was, was
how good is it that a chef understands what they're working
with comes from? And it was quite a conversation,
an in depth conversation I had with one of the chefs.
(49:25):
And it was like he was like, well, yeah.
And I said for a grower, it's good to know of what they're
you're looking for in the kitchen.
And it's a bit like the modern housewife with the European
cucumber. Going back to smaller cucumbers.
I dare bet if they could have a bag of cucumbers which they
chucked one in the in the lunch box for themselves, their
(49:46):
husband, the children, whatever,I dare bet they'd rather pick
one of them up and fry in the lunch box.
They will stay in their slice, not making nice cucumber
sandwiches, you know what I'm saying?
So ham yard is 1. You're only supposed to be given
one choice, but as it's you, I'll give you 2.
So what's your second choice? There's a so this is a bit
switchy. I would like to go to.
(50:06):
There's a in Bedonia in Italy, northern Italy, there is a
restaurant called Ilopico, a trattoria on a windy mountain
Rd. There is no menu, it is whatever
they want to cook that day. And you can sit there and look
over the valley and as you look along the valley, it is probably
(50:31):
as beautiful or in my mind more beautiful than the Tuscan,
Tuscan scenery. The food, the service is unreal.
The wine is made by the hotel, by the, by the restaurant
owners. Even at the end the, the
apparent, not apparative, the digestive, what they give you
the apparative at the beginning homemade and the digestive, as
(50:53):
they call it at the end homemade.
And I would like to take go backthere with those chefs that gave
me the opportunity at, at at theHammyard Hotel.
Because my ex wisdom was be was going to be.
So who would you go back there with and why?
Which you've just answered. It no, no that I I would like to
(51:14):
return the opportunity to them for what they gave me to say.
This is why I like what you did,because this guy makes his own
wine, makes his own liqueurs andeverything.
The food's all locally sourced. It's a kind of how I think it
should be that the the chef should understand what he's
(51:37):
working with and where it comes from.
And to be fair, you're the grower.
It's good if the grower can understand what the end product
is and what they're looking for.Taste, texture, the whole lot.
Well, if they you want to be careful now because if be
careful what you wish for, because if these, if these lads
listen to this, they're going tobe all over it like a rash and
go OK Marco, when we're going becareful what you wish.
(51:58):
For I'd gladly do it so. It's either of the restaurants
you've mentioned. Is there anybody, alive or dead
that you would go back there with the why?
So not a restaurant, no. No, if I could have any choice
(52:20):
of anything in the world, I would like to go back to my
nan's house with my grandparents.
This is really hard and. Take a moment if you want, it's
fine. Yeah, give us a minute.
Fine. It's fine.
I would like to go back to my nan's kitchen with all my
(52:42):
grandparents, all my aunties anduncles all sitting there just
like it used to be. But unfortunately, in my memory
that was very, very faint because my mum's dad passed away
when I was seven. Yeah, but I remember us all
being around there, all drinkingwine, all drinking this what I
thought was little glasses of water, which was something that
(53:02):
they distilled in the garden shed.
Moonshine. Yeah, that's it.
And extremely black, dark, strong coffee.
Well, I'm sure the bloody spoon stood up in the coffee.
I'm sure it did. And with a clearview of how it
would have ended up right to sayI tried my best.
(53:31):
You get me at it again. Now, that's twice.
So now for somebody who is generally considered to be
emotionally bankrupt or constipated, he's doing a
cracking job on me here. Yeah.
Well, I think that could be a good place to finish because it
doesn't get any better than that.
So what? Thank you so much for coming and
(53:53):
talking to us. I mean, I've got no idea where
we're going to go, where we wenttoday.
And I just think it's fantastic.What a great, what a great
story, what a really strong human element that's run through
it. And I think I know you a little
bit better than that. I did.
I've seen a side of you that I didn't know was there, which is
(54:15):
great. And I think it's fantastic.
And I I really, really admire you for bearing your soul.
So Marco Caffarelli, thank you very much.
Thank you. Oh, sorry about that.
Thanks for listening to Supply. Please subscribe wherever you
get your podcasts and follow Supply Podcast on Instagram,
where we'd love to get your questions and suggestions for
(54:36):
future guests. See you next time.
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