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Feeding a nation, family-style.
Makhan Singh Padda arrived in the UK from Punjab in 1966 and spent the following decades doing whatever work he could find. Years later, with no experience of growing fruit, he started a farm on a 2.6-acre site in the Vale of Evesham. That decision has since become one of the most remarkable stories in British horticulture. His son Bal carries it forward today.
More than 120 acres of fields stretch across the Vale of Evesham, and in the summer months they fill with strawberries and raspberries destined for supermarket shelves across the UK. Over 1,500 tonnes leave the farm each year. The numbers are impressive; the story behind them even more so. What began as a single glasshouse turned into 48 acres by 2009, producing 200 tonnes of strawberries a year. It grew the way good things tend to, steadily and without shortcuts. The land is treated with the same care. Two reservoirs capture rainwater for irrigation, with nothing wasted if it doesn't have to be. Every season brings a new variety to trial, a method to refine and a question worth asking again.
Bal grew up around all of it. The early mornings. The harvest rhythm. The particular smell of warm fruit on a summer afternoon. Now he leads the farm his father built, carrying forward a story that neither of them could have predicted from its humble origins. There is a quiet pride to the way he talks about it and a clear sense that the work is far from finished. At peak season, up to 500 seasonal workers join 15 full-time staff. There is a particular energy to a farm at harvest: the days start early, the work is physical and constant, and the air carries the sweetness of what's being picked. The people who show up each season are as much a part of what this place is as the fruit itself. Ask Bal what the secret ingredient is and the answer comes without hesitation. It's the passion, the people and the way the team works together. A straightforward answer from a business that has never needed to complicate its purpose. Grow excellent fruit. Take care of the people doing it.
