Tom Amery is Managing Director of The Watercress Company, the UK’s largest grower of watercress with specialist beds in both Hampshire and Dorset.
Tom studied Commercial Horticulture at Writtle College and before that had spent three years working in the market gardening of both ornamentals and food production.
This experience, together with an overseas trip to Zimbabwe and Australasia after college gave Tom a fantastic growing base across a wide range of produce, but on his return to the UK he was searching for a more unique crop to work with.
The search ended when in 1999 he noticed an advert for a Trainee Technical Manager at The Watercress Company. Despite knowing nothing about the cultivation of watercress he managed to convince the team he was the right man for the job.
Twenty years on and there are few people who know more about the cultivation of watercress than Tom! He admits watercress has become his life, and that his wife even jokes she accepts it’s his second family.
Tom loves the challenge of discovering new innovative research into watercress health, developing growing practices with the team to overcome challenges, and delivering fresh watercress to consumers throughout the UK.