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Irish tomato grower seeks retailer commitments as producers disappear

Martin Flynn says heated glasshouses, costly construction and seven-day working weeks leave little room in growers' margins.

Channel: RTÉ News ·

IrelandStory of October 31, 2026Trari Newsroom

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Long-term supermarket contracts could help keep Irish tomatoes growing, says Martin Flynn, whose family has produced them in Swords, County Dublin, since the 1960s.

Speaking to Ireland's public broadcaster, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ News), Flynn calls for commitments from retailers alongside government support to help growers manage high energy costs and keep investing.

The report puts his experience within a much wider contraction: it estimates that Ireland's commercial fruit and vegetable growers have dwindled from more than 600 in the 1990s to around 70. Flynn says just five large-scale tomato growers remain.

His own glasshouse is only two years old. Inside, a worker loads crates onto a rail cart, but the modern facility also illustrates the expense of entering the business. Flynn puts the construction cost of a hectare of glasshouse at €2.5 million, before the continuing demands of heating and technology.

"A huge part of the cost is energy and that's because all these glass houses are heated," he says. Growing also requires work throughout the week, rather than ordinary office hours.

Flynn's closing request is for retailers to offer enough certainty for producers to plan beyond the next crop: "We need them to make long term commitments to growers."

Published on Trari