A FAMILY-owned wasabi business has designed a range of gift ideas for friends and family to enjoy this Christmas, with more than 400 products to choose from.
The Wasabi Company recently released its festive catalogue, specifically selected for lovers of Japanese cuisine.
As a sister business to The Watercress Company, in Alresford, it prides itself on being the only grower of wasabi in England, using disused watercress beds around Hampshire and Dorset, where the family mix fresh gravel beds with flowing spring water.
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Company managing director, Jon Old said: "Wasabia japonica is a perennial brassica whose natural habitat is the banks of mountain streams with abundant spring water loaded with nutrients and minerals.
"We were able to re-create these wild wasabi conditions in specially adapted, unused Victorian watercress beds on our farms in Dorset and Hampshire."
Today, The Wasabi Company is a proud grower of tens of thousands of wasabi plants, yielding up to two tons of wasabi a year, but it hasn't all been smooth sailing, with the company seeing a 94 per cent drop in sales overnight on March 20, 2020 due to restaurants closing at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic.
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Jon said: "Like so many other businesses, The Wasabi Company lost virtually its entire customer base.
"In that first week, we witnessed a 94 per cent drop in sales. However, the pioneering attitude of the business that brought wasabi to the UK once again came to the fore, and the team put more focus online to help with the difficult problem of what to do with an excess of mature wasabi plants.
"Soon after, The Wasabi Company began to raise its profile amongst a whole new audience of foodies, selling wasabi and products direct to the end consumer. We then saw a threefold increase of 160 per cent in online sales.
"Success is measured in many ways, an energised, engaged and forward-looking staff are at the top of our measures of how we are doing. We also take satisfaction from succeeding with wasabi growing which many thought we were crazy to try.
"It is not easy and farmers know only too well not to be complacent, but welcoming top chefs to the farm and seeing them harvest fully grown wasabi from a Hampshire watercress bed is a proud moment."
To purchase products from The Wasabi Company, visit thewasabicompany.co.uk
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