loveFOOD meets… a salad farmer and doctor of watercress

We talk to Dr Steve Rothwell, holder of a PhD in watercress and the brains behind Steve’s Leaves salad bags.

Move it fast, keep it cold

Steve’s Leaves, a branded range of washed and ready-to-eat bagged leafy salads, launched in April 2011, following farmer Steve Rothwell’s “increasing frustration” with supplying retailers’ own brand salad bags – “Supermarket packaging is so restrictive when it comes to shouting about a lot of the things we do,” said Steve. “And launching new leaf varieties can be frustratingly slow. With our own brand we can take more risks with new ideas.”

All Steve’s leaves are grown in natural light (southern England during the summer, and Iberia in the colder months), making them tastier and more nutritious than most other supermarket leaves. “On the whole our leaves are fresher than most – our mantra is ‘move it fast – keep it cold’. We aim to have the leaves cold and moist within 60 minutes of harvest.”

Plus Steve’s Leaves are the first and only fresh produce farm to hold Nature Friendly Farming status by Conservation Grade, a type of farming that has scientifically proven to increase biodiversity and restore wildlife to the countryside. “Basically we set aside 10% of all our farmed land for conservation of wildlife,” said Steve. “Our farms are alive with bumble bees, butterflies, bats, barn owls... and that’s just the ‘B’s!”

Steve also prides himself on the diversity of leaves on offer, including  ‘fennel tops and sweet leaves’; ‘pea shoots and mint’; ‘baby watercress and little leaves’; ‘wasabi rocket and other fab leaves’; and ‘wild red rocket and milder leaves’. You can see the full range here, and check out some of Steve’s Leaves recipes here.  

Wonderful watercress

Steve’s interest in leaves is extraordinary. In fact, he even completed a PhD in the nutritional physiology of watercress in the 1980s and has been working in the leaf industry ever since. He eats a watercress sandwich for lunch every day (with exactly 77g of watercress in it) and was even given a watercress birthday cake once.

“It’s the most nutritious food known,” said Steve. “Watercress has more calcium than milk, more B vitamins than blackcurrants, more iron than spinach, and more vitamin C than oranges. Plus it has a fascinating history – the Greek and Roman generals always gave their troops watercress whenever they could find it to help their fighting prowess; and the Victorians ascribed aphrodisiac properties to it, also claiming it cured freckles and hangovers.

“It’s also probably the most effective cancer fighting food known. I am currently pulling together a research initiative with Lisbon University, the Lisbon Hospital, and UK universities to evaluate the impact of eating watercress during radio therapy with a group of 200 early diagnosis breast cancer patients in Lisbon.”

For more information on Steve's Leaves, visit the website. 

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