Can you believe it’s been 35 years since Tangmere first started production, selling its fresh produce to British retailers?
Our story began as a 7.5-acre tomato greenhouse built on the former Tangmere airfield site in Chichester, West Sussex. Ideally located near the sunny south coast and protected by the South Downs, it’s still our home today and provides the perfect conditions for growing!
35 years ago, in the last week of March 1989, we made our first harvest of salad tomatoes. In that inaugural growing season, we produced around 1.3 million kilos of tomatoes from one greenhouse.
Three years later, in 1992, we built another greenhouse and decided to diversify a little, introducing the first crop of sweet bell peppers, here at Tangmere.
We celebrated our first year of pepper production in 1993. Thanks to its success, by the following year, the whole nursery became dedicated to pepper production – growing the best quality and most flavoursome peppers, expanding into three large greenhouses, from 8 up to a total 25 acres.
Time flies when you’re having fun!
When we first started to grow peppers, we only had one variety “Mazurka” for our green and red peppers. Now, more than three decades later, the total amount of varieties we’ve grown here at Tangmere, exceeds 200! Of course, this number includes trial varieties, grown inside our research greenhouse, every year. We continually test new varieties and the way we grow plants, to be at the forefront of innovation, and to find the next pepper everyone loves!
Today, our family-run business, is into its second-generation, now with a 75-acre site at Tangmere where the freshest peppers are grown, picked, and packed with production volumes approaching 68 million per year!
Dick Houweling, Tangmere Airfield Nurseries’ Managing Director:
“In our 35th year, we thank all who have been with us on this amazing journey, here’s to many more years!”
