Location: Badajoz, Spain 38°90'N, 7°90'E Spain is ketchup tomato heaven - with the perfect conditions to help us grow our delicious sun-ripened tomatoes, farmers have been growing in the Badajoz area since Roman times! The Vazquez family, who owns Conesa, has been farming tomatoes with us for over three generations, passing down their expert tomato knowledge and ensuring each stage of the tomato growth is as good as it should be and will continue to be in the future. Over a decade ago, we partnered with them to help improve their agricultural practices and the quality of their tomato crops. We understood the main issue was the over-tilling of the fields. Tilling is a common farming technique that aims to prepare soil for the next crop by digging, stirring and overturning the soil. Over time, through over-tilling and other suboptimal practices, the top layer of soil, which feeds crops and helps them grow, becomes less penetrable - dry, and lacking the nutrients that are required to grow crops like our unique ketchup tomatoes. The higher the quality of topsoil, the more nutrients the plant has access to, creating stronger roots and better tomatoes. After all, irresistible taste starts with great soil.

Through ripping techniques, we cut through the hard, impenetrable layers of soil and removed the soil compaction to obtain a deeper, more fertile band of soil. Over time, this helped the soil fill up with nutrients to improve the growth of our tasty tomatoes. We also introduced cover cropping (planting crops such as grasses intermittently between tomato harvests) to help strengthen the soil, giving back nutrients in order to help build the soil back up. Through these soil-restoring practices, the topsoil layer increased significantly, and so did the quantity of tomatoes in the Vazquez family’s fields. With this technique, we have helped improve organic matter from 0.94 to 1.8% and tomato yields from an average of 70-90 tons per hectare to 110 tons/hectare annually from 2016 to 2021. At first, this was piloted in just four fields — but today, 100% of farms growing Heinz tomatoes in Spain apply cover crops, and thanks to the hard work and expertise of the Conesa family, they are protecting the soil and the land for generations to come.