Despite stiff competition, a contest launched find the nation’s tastiest tomato has reached its conclusion.
The Tastiest Tomato Competition, organised by the British Tomato Growers’ Association at the Totally Tomato Show at West Dean Gardens near Chichester, was open to both commercial and amateur growers, and was won by recreational grower Rosamund Wilson, whose Sungold tomatoes wowed the judges.
Runners up included Kieran Devine of Wight Salads, and Aland Taylor from Flavourfresh.
Wilson won the Len Summerton cup, which was named after a Southampton tomato enthusiast whose daughter, Kate Armes, presented the awards.
She said: “My mother used to get quite fed up with huge bowls of tomatoes coming in every day, filling up the kitchen and he would just laugh and pick some more.”
A spokesman for the TGA, Gerry Hayman, said that despite the light side to the competition, the association did have some more serious objectives.
“Whenever we attend shows we are told by the public that tomatoes don’t taste like they used to,” he said. “We actually think ours taste better, but putting that aside, if we get people to try them, they often say, ‘ah, but you can’t buy them like this in the shops’. Whilst that may be the case with the majority that are imported, it is not true of the fantastic range of British varieties now available. That was the point we were aiming to prove.”
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