Fat Tomato: Building a Business Around Biodiversity
What if the future of a small food business isn’t about making more, but making something nobody else can?
That’s the question at the heart of a Business Plus feature on Fat Tomato and the idea we have spent the past 10 years developing here in North Wexford.
From a tiny hillside edible garden, we now grow more than 500 varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs and edible flowers – exploring the extraordinary differences in flavour, colour, seasonality and resilience between varieties. Rather than trying to standardise nature, we build around what the garden gives us. Small harvests become concentrated, limited-edition flavours. Heritage and open-pollinated varieties become seeds for other people to grow. Storytelling, craft and design turn what we grow into products and gifts with a real sense of place.
Business Plus explores that model, the recognition Fat Tomato has received since launching commercially in late 2024, and what comes next.
Our tiny garden was always intended to be the beginning. The next chapter is finding the right home where we can grow more varieties, protect and explore more of our food heritage, and bring the garden, food, retail, workshops and visitor experiences together into one distinctive destination.
There’s a long way to go, but it’s exciting to see the thinking behind Fat Tomato – and the bigger ambition behind this little garden – recognised by one of Ireland’s leading business publications.