Goatham opens new packhouse

Topfruit grower AC Goatham & Son has boosted its production facilities with the unveiling of a state-of-the-art packhouse as part of a £9m expansion.

The new resource at Flanders Farm in Kent features a six-lane, 36-outlet optical pre-grader, which can handle 20 tonnes of fruit an hour and measure qualities such as size and colour. The building will also house five ripening rooms for pears.

The topfruit giant already produces more than one in four British apples sold in the UK and its market share is set to grow following the acquisition of a second farm last year.

The new site at Turkey Hall Farm near Hoo in Kent adds to the grower’s existing base at nearby Flanders Farm.

The company has already begun replanting the new site with 175 acres of Conference and Cox orchards, as well as an early fruiting clone of Royal Gala in the winter. Over one million new trees are already in place, with plans to add a further 580,000 by 2020.

“We have to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place to keep pace with our orchard expansion,” said co-owner of the company, Ross Goatham. “The construction of this facility has been brought forward, to ensure we stay ahead of this.”

Goatham added that the packhouse will make operations “more efficient on many levels”.
“The main difference will be in the pre-grading of fruit and not having to find a market for the fruit which comes out of storage and isn’t required by the customer,” he said.

The business forecasts that it will produce 170 million apples and 50 million pears this season – 20 million more apples than in the 2015 season.