Introducing the ‘Leamington No 1’ tomato.
- A brilliant red paste tomato on 18” plants.
- ‘Leamington No 1’ is productive, container friendly, and easy to grow.
- The plum-shaped tomatoes are great for sauce making and salsa.
And ‘Leamington No 1’ comes with a great story.
Our research suggests ‘Leamington No 1’ was likely a paste tomato used by Heinz at their former tomato producing plant in Leamington. Ontario.
A bit of background information:
Leamington, Ontario is the ‘Tomato Capital of Canada’ — and famous for its ‘Big Tomato’ (see the postcard from 1961). For over 100 years (1909-2014), Heinz owned a tomato processing plant in Leamington and used tomatoes grown by local farmers — see Postcard 2 for a picture of the tomato processing plant (1958). Two other postcards of Leamington show a field of tomatoes (1965) and tomatoes ready for processing at the plant (1960).
The late Canadian folk/country singer Stompin’ Tom Connors even wrote a song about Leamington’s tomatoes called ‘The Ketchup Song’.
In Leamington, Heinz would have supplied farmers with the seed they wanted the famers to plant which would have been the high-water mark of tomato breeding. It is likely that Leamington No 1 (which was donated to Plant Gene Resources Canada by the master Canadian tomato breeder Dr. Ernie Kerr in 1987) was a paste variety used by Heinz (but its official name would have been a numbered variety).
The ‘Ketchup War’
The story of ‘Leamington No 1’ is also interesting because of the ‘Ketchup War’.
The Ketchup War was the ‘battle’ between Heinz and French’s ketchup brands for a place in Canadians’ fridges.
When Heinz closed the Leamington plant in 2014, the town was dealt a huge psychological and economic blow.
But then French’s stepped in and started to have its ketchup made at the Leamington plant. They used Canadian grown tomatoes which provided contracts for tomato farmers and jobs in the factory. And French’s — who are more familiar for their mustard — highlighted their use of Canadian grown tomatoes on their ketchup bottles.
The ‘Ketchup War’ started in 2016 when a local construction worker named Brian Fernandez posted on Facebook that he would no longer be buying Heinz’s ketchup and had switched to French’s. His post resonated with a lot of people (receiving 100,000+ likes), and a grass roots movement took off with people switching ketchup brands. There is even a CBC documentary about events called “Inside the Ketchup War”.
Now you can grow the ‘Leamington No 1’ tomato in your backyard and grow your own ketchup:)
Our original seedstock came from Plant Gene Resources Canada (PGRC).
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A big thank you to Renee Charron for sharing her picture with us. Renee took the picture of our ‘Leamington No 1’ tomato seeds in front of the ‘Big Tomato’ in Leamington (it’s still there!). Thank you to Renee for repatriating the ‘Leamington No 1’ seeds back to the Leamington area.
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How to Plant: Start seeds indoors 6 weeks before the last frost. Plant seed 5mm (¼ inch) deep. Transplant after the danger of frost has passed/later spring.
