History

In the UK we have always grown and enjoyed the round butterhead lettuce, known for its soft leaves and sweet, buttery taste. While ever popular, since then, the variety and types of salad we are now able to buy has changed vastly in the last thirty years.

• The crunchy and refreshing iceberg whole lettuce, which became synonymous with the 1980s classic ‘prawn cocktail’, was introduced to the UK from America in the late 1970s. Iceberg was given its name as a result of being originally packed with ice so as to survive transportation across the United States in warm temperatures
• In the late 1980s and early 1990s, lettuces know as ‘continental’ or ‘specialty’, such as batavia, lollo rosso and romaine, began to be grown here after being introduced to us from our European cousins
• The first bagged salad was a shredded iceberg introduced by Marks & Spencer in 1986
• In the late 1990s baby leaf and further specialty leaves such as rocket were grown in the UK.

Today we have the widest choice of UK grown leafy salad available to enjoy than ever before. Advances in farming mean that we can now grow a wider variety of salads in the UK and produce better yields.