The SHRUB guide to (early) summer
The world's best greengrocers share their favourite things to buy, and cook, right now
My 9-5 (hours here used to illustrate it as my day job and sadly not entirely accurate) means that my time is largely spent in the test kitchens at Jamie Oliver HQ - recipe writing and testing with a little food styling, too. I write and cook menus for events at our Islington office for anything from a food hero’s retirement to celebrating a new cookbook release.
I’m part of a small and wonderful team that help cook the ‘here’s one I made earlier’ dishes for segments of live TV, hand-pick ingredients for video and photo shoots and have oven thermometers, kitchen timers, tea spoons and washing-up apparatus on hand at all times.
We cook a lot of food in a week. While very little of it is wasted, this is the only part of my job that doesn’t always sit quite right with me. We use a very popular, large scale London wholesaler who can, more often than not, source you any fruit or vegetable you can think of and at any time. There are no seasons - an ‘it’s 5 o’clock somewhere’ of the food world.
This is handy as content schedules usually work many months in advance (Christmas in July, anyone?), but after spending more and more time with small-scale British growers outside of my working week, having ‘country of origin’ as the only details of the hands that have grown what I’m cooking with feels… not good enough.
The problem is, especially when ordering for delivery and in such large quantities, there is very little alternative. Our leader (and one of my biggest inspirations) Ginny Rolfe often talks of the first heady days of Jamie’s career over 25 years ago when it could take someone a whole day in grocers and supermarkets to source all of the ingredients for the following day’s shoot. From a business sense, it’s not sustainable.
Four years ago I met Sam and Harry from SHRUB. Greeting them in our office and shaking their hands I couldn’t help but notice they were both at least 20 years younger than any greengrocer I had dealt with before. They had a little dirt on their boots and beneath their finger nails.
They proceeded to talk me through a box of produce they had brought to show me, not only naming the varieties of each fruit and vegetable but the first name of the person that had grown them. There were nearly a dozen different varieties of potato, as well as gooseberries, broad bean flowers, nasturtium leaves, field rhubarb and some of the most incredible strawberries I had ever had. They had access to items I had only ever either picked in my garden or heard about from growers themselves.
Harry and Sam could not only discuss in detail what tasted delicious, but why it tasted delicious - how considered land management, a focussed approach to soil health and a drive for a rich and biodiverse growing environment from their growers was fundamental to flavour.
I feel very lucky indeed to now call them both friends and, after countless deliveries from them and many visits to farms and their warehouse in Sussex, truly consider them to be the world’s best greengrocers. In this week’s newsletter Harry and Sam explain a little more about the work they do and, fresh from the fields, share a note or two about the produce they’re most looking forward to in the coming weeks.
From Harry and Sam…
We’re no strangers to stringing a few sentences together, but when Hugo asked us to contribute a newsletter special, we found ourselves sentence-less, such was the flattery. Nonetheless, we shall persevere.
To introduce ourselves, we’re Shrub. Over the years, we’ve been called “greener grocers”, “enlightened middlemen”, or even “Covid cowboys”. Five years on from our genesis, we’re a fruit and veg wholesaler with a big, integrity-driven twist.
Shrub works directly with farms, sourcing exclusively within the UK seasons (the only exceptions being citrus from the Todolí Citrus Foundation and Two Fields Olive Oil), and providing a completely transparent supply chain. We do not buy from bigger wholesalers. Full stop. The farms we’re best known for working with range between 1 and 60 acres, and are hyper-soil-focused. They are some of the last true remaining artisans and market gardeners.
Some of the restaurants we work with include The Ledbury, Manteca, Mountain, Café Deco, Silo, Plates and AngloThai, Spring, Lyle’s, Oma, Ottolenghi, Noble Rot, and many more. They come to us for the nearest experience possible to farm gate sales. As traceability and provenance become more central to the ethos of any business worth its salt, we’re able not just to supply, but to educate, and to bridge the gap between farmers and chefs.
What this business is not built for is soundbites. We can’t reduce what we do to a one-liner or strap line. Food, farming and sustainability are serious subjects: complex, important, and tangled up with politics, history, globalism and capitalism.
What thrives in these circumstances is the opportunity for deceit in pursuit of profit. That’s why we have to be vigilant. We believe in educating and energising the consumer — they are the ultimate gatekeepers of what gets sold to us as “food”. For that, we rely on great food ambassadors, on farms and in kitchens alike, to keep it real.
When people ask us, “What can I do to eat more sustainably?”, we always start with seasonality. It’s the basis of what can grow and when, at the best time of year. Like tides, the seasons cannot be negotiated with. Buying seasonally reduces transport miles and pollution, and helps you find your bearings in the world. You start to notice why classic dishes from around the globe use the ingredients they do; because if it grows together, it goes together. Think ratatouille, Caprese salad, game stew, or omelette aux fines herbes.
Late May is the real turning point of the UK season. Spring produce now includes asparagus, Jersey Royal potatoes, radishes, violet artichokes, broad beans, spring greens, tender garlic, wild garlic, spring onions and fresh salad leaves. More arrives by the day.
After the season, what matters to us most is who grows it, and how. Our Jersey Royals come from one of the only organic growers of the famed, trade-marked variety, which, in its alter ego, is known as an “international kidney”. The Le Maistre family have been farming on the island since 1841. They’re known for tatties and organic veg, grown with manure compost from their own Jersey herd. Their south-facing cotils (steep, small fields) receive significantly more UV light than the mainland, and their crops are enriched by nutrient-rich sea air. They genuinely are better
Radishes, thanks to their popularity, come from several small organic farms, including Knepp, Clearwater and Borde Hill, all in Sussex. They’re a fantastic crop, ready to harvest in four weeks. Spicy, crunchy, with herbaceous tops: nature’s ready-to-go crudités. Smear them with butter and salt, Caesar dressing, or whipped cod’s roe.
Violette artichokes are a recent arrival to the UK. They’re grown organically by Clive and Tobias Martin at Bedlam Farm in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Perennial crops are a win for soil health and labour. These are smaller, earlier and easier to prep than the globe artichokes of old (which we still love), by the way. Turned, topped and halved, they’re perfect for barigoule or crisped in oil, twice-fried.
Broad beans are one of our favourites for snacking. Sutton Community Farm and Laines Organics grow the best in the country. Don’t bother peeling them. The skins are full of fibre and nutrients. They go beautifully with hogget, which is what we should (and do) eat at this time of year, instead of lamb. The plant’s leaf tips are delicious in salads or pestos. And, as a legume, it’s a brilliant nitrogen fixer.
Spring garlic, sometimes called “wet” garlic, deserves more attention. It’s a bold, generous ingredient, and far milder than its dried, cured cousin. It’s only six weeks younger, but has a completely different temperament. It can be confited, braised whole with beans, smashed onto toast, or used in ferments.
There is so much knowledge that used to be as second nature to us as time-tables, passed down from generation to generation, learned over hundreds of years. That knowledge bank protected us from industrial subjection. It’s time we got it back.
Right now, the fields are changing fast. Each week brings something new, fleeting and exciting. It’s our job to catch it, honour it, and pass it on to those who’ll do it justice. The chefs and restaurants we work with aren’t just buying produce. They’re investing in a better system, plate by plate.
At Shrub, we’re not interested in greenwashing, or polished narratives. We care about the real stuff: the field conversations, the last-minute harvest calls, the moment the crop hits peak flavour. We follow that, not the marketing calendar. For us, eating well and eating sustainably isn’t about sacrifice. It’s about alignment. With land. With growers. With the seasons.
So, if there’s one thing to take away from this summer special, it’s this: trust the seasons. They know more than we do. Learn them, lean into them, and let them lead.
Thank you for reading — and thank you, Hugo, for giving us the space.
Follow SHRUB. To buy some of their grower’s wonderful produce, check them out at the Toklas Summer Fruits Market on Saturday 7th June.
Could not love this more. The best green grocers going