Icebergs were just the tip of the Houston’s Farm salad business. Now brothers Anthony and Colin Houston are so involved in growing baby salad leaves now that they have given the stand-by iceberg lettuce away.
The business is growing almost as rapidly as the lettuces – this year Houstons almost doubled the area farm by adding 100 hectares at Richmond to the home farm at Cambridge; staff numbers have climbed to 40, new packaging has been created and new plant to wash more leaves faster.
The brothers cannot claim credit for coming up with the idea – Wrest Point Hotel asked a wholesaler to present it with washed, mixed leaves. After just one week of attempting this, the wholesaler asked the growers, Houstons, to take it on. Their first piece of machinery was a domestic washing machine to spin the leaves dry.
At this time of year, the six different varieties of lettuce and 10 other leaves, such as rocket, baby beetroot leaves, tatsoi and baby spinach, which the farm calls “herbs” to distinguish them from the lettuces, take six to eight weeks to grow and not all of the land is covered in ruffled lines ranging from bright green to purple. In winter, when the plants take as long as 16 weeks to be ready, all the land is planted out.
Whatever their job later in the day, all Houston staff start their shift as pickers – getting out from 5.30am to bring the leaves in during the cool of the day. This early-morning harvest and quick cooling afterwards allows for a shelf life of 11 days.
Anthony Houston said the Tasmanian climate and the careful handling meant their product did better on shelves in Brisbane than that of local growers, despite the distance travelled.
About 40% of the output is sold on the mainland and 60% in Tasmania. “In Tasmania the independent shops are a very important market for us,” said Anthony Houston.
As well as two salad mixes – mesclun, which is mostly lettuce, and Mediterranean, which has less lettuce and more of the other leaves, there are bags of just baby rocket, spinach and bok choy and a Wok ’n Steam pack of Asian greens that need only to be wilted.
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