So why doesn't horticulture, now a £3bn industry, simply try to employ British workers?
The answer is straightforward for Beverley Dixon, from G's Fresh, which employs some 2,500 seasonal workers growing salad crops across large areas of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, as well as other farms dotted across the UK.
"We operate in areas of such low unemployment, so here in Cambridgeshire, it's less than 1.5%," she said.
"So there simply aren't the people available to do the work, added to which UK people tend to want permanent year-round work and this is seasonal work.'