I've been a chef for over 50 years, but I've come to realize that the food we eat tells a story about who we are. So I'm on a mission to find out what we all like to eat—from traditional dishes like the Yorkshire pudding to those we've made our own. I'll meet producers, taste craft beers, visit some of our best chefs, and see how food brings us together. Today I'm in Lincolnshire, an overwhelmingly rural county. It's not one many people think to visit, but a surprisingly large proportion of our food is grown here, including a third of our vegetables. I'm driving through the unspoiled scenery of the Lincolnshire Wolds, and if you're lucky enough to travel through this magnificent but overlooked part of the country, I suggest a song for your playlist: an 18th-century folk song called The Lincolnshire Poacher.
Lincolnshire is England's second-largest county. At its heart is the city of Lincoln with its imposing cathedral, once the tallest building in the world. On its coast can be found the popular seaside resort of Skegness. It's also a county steeped in centuries of farming tradition, but what I'm about to share is a food story that's altogether more futuristic. This giant greenhouse in Carrington, southern Lincolnshire, spans 15 acres and houses 700,000 strawberry plants. Extra heat is filtered in so strawberries can be grown in winter. Trials are underway to have them picked by robots 24 hours a day, and bug guns release insects which eat other insects on the plants, meaning less need for pesticides. The man behind this intriguing combination of farming and scientific experimentation is none other than James Dyson, more familiar to most of us as the inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner. First and foremost—how did this happen? How did you start growing strawberries, or farming?
I was brought up in North Norfolk where a lot of my friends were farmers. I worked on farms lugging sacks of potatoes, picking blackcurrants. Farming is in my blood—I was brought up with it. And when I was in a position to buy farms, I wanted to bring technology to it. We developed technology at Dyson, and now we're developing technology for farming. There you see robotic UV lights that go down at night to kill the mildew, so there are no nasty chemicals here. They're lovely strawberries, by the way, and we grow them all year round, so they're no air-mile strawberries.
What's behind this fascinating project is James's belief that we need new and efficient ways to grow more of our own food, to make us less reliant on imports.
We should be using Britain to grow food—grow delicious food, do it sustainably, so that we are not dependent on imported air miles or sea miles fruit and food.
We always feel a bit guilty when you look at, say, some green beans from Uganda—how much did that cost to bring here? Not a very good idea from a sustainability point of view, but also a security point of view. I'd like to taste one, actually—they're looking so good right now. Rather naughtily, I'll pick one. Lovely fruit—nice acidity, sweetness, freshness, and really, really juicy. My initial thinking before I came here was, wouldn't strawberries grown in the ground taste better? I'd have thought terroir mattered.
Doesn't matter at all. But they're Centenary, which is a good breed anyway. And we also pump CO2 in here—CO2 makes things grow and makes things taste good.
Now, where that CO2 comes from is also interesting. Outside the greenhouse there's a huge operation going on over more than 10,000 acres where James is growing crops like wheat, barley, and peas. But carbon dioxide is also being captured as part of a carefully designed farming system.
That's the greenhouse we've been in. The reason it's right next to us is that we're actually standing on an anaerobic digester. I'll tell you how it works: we bring in crops—a barley crop that's just landed—we tamp it down, and when it's rotted and almost liquid, we bring it into one of two tanks and stir it. It turns into gas. We can either feed that gas as CO2 into the greenhouse, or feed it to three generators and generate electricity. That electricity supports 10,000 acres plus any electricity we need in the glasshouse. The generators are only 60% efficient, so there's 40% waste heat, which we use to heat the greenhouses in winter. And the waste digestate goes back on the fields as natural fertilizer. It's a circular system—totally green.
It's unbelievable—totally green. And this is sort of doable in many other places.
Really, if people had the money—that's the thing. We've invested hugely, of course buying the farms, but we've also invested 130 million in improving them.
As a billionaire, James obviously has the sort of money other farmers don't, but it seems to me he's experimenting on their behalf. If usable, future-proof farming methods come from it, that can only be a very good thing. I came away from Dyson Farms with some fabulous British strawberries and made my slightly poshed-up take on strawberries and cream: a refreshing strawberry sorbet with crème chantilly and langues de chat biscuits. Then I made my way to Lincoln, Lincolnshire's only city. The writer John Ruskin described its cathedral as the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles. The road leading up to it, Steep Hill, is the fourth-steepest street in England. Lincolnshire, once known as Bomber County, is now shaped by agriculture. I'm at a farm just north of Lincoln to meet Rachel Green, author and chef, whose family has been farming here for 400 years. Hello! Well, of course, you come from generations of farmers.
We go back supposedly 14 generations—it's a long, long time. I just feel it's in my blood. There's a legacy left by the Greens in agriculture in Lincolnshire, and I'm very proud of that.
The Greens of Lincolnshire! Well, the other thing is, I've been to Grimsby a few times for the fish. How come people don't realize that there's this massive county that they really should visit?
Well, there's no real direct motorway, you see, so people tend to go around it. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the sort of kudos perhaps that Norfolk does, but it's equally as beautiful. I think people just miss it. Actually, I'm quite grateful because I like my little county.
We shouldn't be filming with you then! Rachel has offered to make me a truly traditional Lincolnshire treat: plum bread served with Lincolnshire Poacher cheese, using her Granny Green's recipe.
