Soft Fruit
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| Our strawberries and raspberries grow in abundance from April to November
in glasshouses and poly-tunnels. |
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This is the time of year when our soft fruit enterprise is
at its busiest. We grow 75 hectares of fruit, producing 1,300 tonnes of Class
1 fruit that is picked and packed on site. The final destination is UK supermarket
shelves with Morrisons being the major retailer.
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Our main strawberry crop varieties are
Elsanta, Albion, Jubilee and Diamante. We also grow Sonata, Darselect Amorillo
and Juliet.
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Our raspberry varieties are Tulameen together
with some American Driscol varieties, Cardinal and Dulcita.
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Each retailer has a preferred variety
list based on taste, shape and shelf life of the fruit.
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| Seasonal pickers |
| We employ approx 450 seasonal pickers each
year under daily contracts. They are mainly students from
countries outside Europe. They have work permits under the governments Seasonal
Agricultural Workers Scheme giving students permission
to work on our farm for up to 6 months. Further details of this scheme can be
obtained from the recruiting agents HOPS
Labour Solutions. We also employ students from
eastern europe many of them arereturnees from previous seasons with us. |
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Our pickers are
housed in mobile homes located on-site with 24
hour support via a camp welfare officer. We also provide them with recreational
facilities, transport to the local supermarket, an internet cafe, laundry, gym,
TV lounge, football and volleyball pitches. Trips are arranged on days off so
that the students can visit various UK cities and tourist attractions. |
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| Packhouse |
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All of our fruit is
hand picked direct into punnets then taken to our on farm packhouse where it
undertakes rapid cooling to maintain the maximum fruit quality.
Our packing lines and weighing scales are fully automated. This enables our enable
packing line staff to quality check, weigh, lid and label fruit efficiently for
same day despatch to supermarkets.
The packhouse can pack in excess of 4,500 punnets per hour. |
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| Tunnels |
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The risk to the supply of berries created by the UK weather
has been reduced by the use of temporary polythene tunnel structures that give
protection to the crop at critical growing and harvesting periods. The use of
poly-tunnels is an emotive issue and we are very aware of both sides of the debate.
We comply with the Herefordshire Councils Voluntary Code governing their use.
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| Conservation and environmental issues |
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We fully support research into new poly-tunnel materials
and are always looking at new production techniques or materials that will lessen
the impact on the local landscape and environment.
We have taken part in trials that used different coloured polythene under the
strawberry plants to lessen the visual impact.
One of the newest production methods undertaken has been the use of natural predators
instead of chemical insecticides. We use real "friendly" insects to
kill off unwanted predators.
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