Arabfields, Leonor Fernández de Córdoba, Correspondent, Spain — A traditional tomato grown in the fields of Palencia has taken the top prize in Spain, giving young grower Emilio Medina a double victory at the National Old Tomato Competition in Polanco, Cantabria.
Medina won the award for Spain’s best tomato with the Negro del Escorial variety and also claimed the international title with an Ananas Noir, a French variety known for its unusual mix of colours and flavours.
The results were announced during the eighth edition of the National Old Tomato Fair, held in Polanco on August 22 and 23. The event brought together growers, experts and tomato enthusiasts from across Spain, with thousands of visitors attending activities focused on traditional agriculture, food and seed preservation.
For Medina, the awards reflect years of patient work rather than a single successful harvest. Based in Villalcázar de Sirga, Palencia, the young grower maintains and recovers hundreds of traditional varieties while experimenting with new selections.
His winning Negro del Escorial is the result of years of selection from traditional tomato varieties. Medina grows his plants in dry conditions, using little water, a method he says helps concentrate the flavour. The heavy clay soils of the Tierra de Campos area and significant differences between daytime and nighttime temperatures also contribute to the characteristics of the fruit.
The international winner offered a very different experience. When cut open, the Ananas Noir reveals green, yellow and red sections, with each colour offering a different balance of sweetness and acidity. For consumers, that unusual combination has helped make traditional varieties increasingly attractive to people looking for distinctive products rather than uniform supermarket tomatoes.
Polanco’s competition also highlighted the wider effort to protect agricultural biodiversity. The municipality and its Old Tomato Seed Bank have been encouraging families to bring forward tomato varieties that have been grown in home gardens for generations. Some of these seeds have never been commercially produced and could disappear if they are no longer cultivated.
The issue is becoming more important as farmers face pressure to grow varieties selected for transport, storage and uniform appearance. Traditional tomatoes often have different shapes and lower yields, but their stronger flavours and genetic diversity give them value that cannot easily be measured by volume alone.
The 2026 fair also attracted more than 800 entries to its tomato competition, according to local organisers, underlining the growing interest in heritage varieties. The previous edition in 2025 featured around 600 varieties, suggesting that participation and public attention are continuing to expand.
If this trend continues, Polanco could see an even larger pool of traditional varieties entering its competition and seed preservation programmes in the coming years. Greater participation could also encourage more growers to recover forgotten varieties and give them a place in local markets, restaurants and specialist food businesses.
For Medina, however, the work remains rooted in the soil. He has described learning from older growers while also learning through years of trial and error. His double victory in Polanco offers recognition for that effort, but it also reinforces a broader message from the fair, that preserving the tomatoes of the past may help shape a more diverse agricultural future.
