YOUR INDUSTRY
NEW SERVICE A LIFELINE DURING COVID Words by Helena O’Neill
The Tregidga family run Clevedon Herbs & Produce near Auckland. Pictured are dad Phil, Amy, and Liz
For the Tregidga family behind Clevedon Herbs & Produce, growing fresh produce for their subscription box service has been a lifeline during a global pandemic. The award-winning operation on four hectares at Clevedon was started by parents Phil and Jenny Tregidga, with their daughter Liz joining the business nearly 10 years ago. After a good four years of hands-on learning and scribbling notes in diaries, Liz is now running the show, with her sister Amy handling the marketing side of things with support from other family members along with four long-term staff. Their produce is all grown hydroponically except for the beetroot, carrots and radishes. They grow their own plants from seeds. Liz’s grandfather Percy Tregidga was one of the earliest growers of glasshouse tomatoes in the country, in Mangere, South Auckland. Her uncles, Mark and George, were the first into the large-scale hydroponic growing of tomatoes on the same farm. Phil and Jenny wanted more of a country lifestyle for their family, purchasing land in the Wairoa Gorge near Clevedon. They began growing lettuce hydroponically, later importing red and fancy lettuce seed from the United States in the 1980s. 38
NZGROWER : MARCH 2021
“You could get Butterhead [also known as Buttercrunch] lettuce but you couldn’t get any of the coloured ones. A grower in the States supplied the seed to us and we tried out these others. All of a sudden there was a demand for it and the seed companies started bringing it in,” Phil says. “People were paying exorbitant prices for a lettuce when they first started.” Phil and Jenny were the largest growers of fancy lettuces right through the 1990s until the industry evolved and they got squeezed out of the market. They were soon asked to sell lettuce at farmers’ markets. While the farm is free of chemical sprays, it is not certified organic. Phil is a big believer in the philosophy of organics but not the practice of organics which uses about a third more land, which isn’t sustainable, he says. Feedback from people at the markets helped shape what the Tregidga family decided to grow. “If I’m going to stand here for four hours, I’m going to be selling more than just lettuce,” Phil laughs. “Within five years we said goodbye to the supermarkets. It went from a hydroponic fancy lettuce farm to growing up to 40 types of different vegetables,” Liz says. The broccoli Italian tasty stems grow beautifully in the hydroponic system all year round and remain a favourite with both customers and Liz.
