Brexit might be coming at the right time for one U.K. tomato grower. Sterling Suffolk is starting to harvest tomatoes at the greenhouse in southeast England. The crops will compete against imports that make up the bulk of what Britons buy, and come as concerns remain that a no-deal Brexit could lead to tariffs or port holdups, hurting incoming supplies.
“For us, Brexit is a dream,” said David Scrivens, a director of Sterling Suffolk, which started work on the project six years ago and began building in April. “Because we’re competing against imported tomatoes, it can only make ours more valuable.”
Sterling Suffolk expects to produce a truck-load per day by summer, with peak daily output reaching 11 tons, and is preparing to start selling to supermarkets. U.K. farmers produce no more than half of the tomatoes sold in the country in summer, and just a fifth throughout the whole year, according to the British Tomato Grower’s Association.