Riverford Farm Cook Book: Tales from the Fields, Recipes from the Kitchen. Jane Baxter

Over the last 20 years the drive to reduce costs has concentrated the industry in the hands of three or four large players with land in the east of England and southern Spain, supplied with seed by two or three international seed companies and all fighting for contracts with four major supermarkets. Carrots are lifted, sifted, sorted and washed; polished, packed, cooled and distributed to shelves around the country with extraordinary speed and efficiency 52 weeks of the year.