On Thursday the 7th of July, as part of Great British Pea Week, the Yes Peas! campaign hosted its first ever Pick Your Own Peas event to celebrate the small and mighty vegetable and inspire everyone to cook with peas.
Thanks to optimum soil and climate conditions, peas are grown the length of the Eastern Seaboard, from Essex right up to Dundee. Lincolnshire is one of the many areas in the UK famed for growing peas. The UK is home to around 700 hardworking pea farmers who produce around 160,000 tonnes of frozen peas each year, most of which travel from field to freezer in around 150 minutes!
Celebrating its 20th year, the Yes Peas! campaign launched Great British Pea Week to recognise the industry-wide effort made by experts across the pea vining sector during their busiest period, who work hard to produce 2 billion portions of peas for the UK market. During the eight-week British harvest, the industry work in unison to harvest around the clock, shell and transport the peas from field to frozen as quickly as possible – with many making it to the factory and through the freezing process in under two and a half hours!
Lucky members of the public attended one of the many pea fields just outside of Boston, Lincolnshire to pick their very own peas, straight from the vine. Local primary school children from Boston West Academy also paid a visit to the pea field and got to learn more about how the versatile vegetable is grown and were provided with recipe cards to inspire them to get creative in the kitchen with their family.
Coral Clark, Crop Associations Manager at the British Growers Association, says: “We were thrilled to open up one of our pea fields exclusively for the first time ever! Great British Pea Week is our annual celebration of the UK’s vining pea industry. We are over 90% self sufficient in pea production in the UK, so it’s safe to say they’re one of our favourite vegetables.
“We are passionate about using peas to make exciting new meals and dishes, and hope that we can inspire the nation to do just that for Great British Pea Week. It’s not to be missed!”
For further information about Great British Pea Week and the Yes Peas! campaign, please visit www.peas.org.