Fresca Group executive chairman Chris Mack is urging growers to work hard to attract more funding for their work in the UK.
He also admitted he put at stake his company’s good name by embarking on the ambitious Thanet Earth glasshouse project.
The £100 million investment in the Kent site is a joint venture with grower partners, but Mack was brutally honest in a speech due to be delivered at the Oxford Farming Conference this week.
“It’s a number that still makes the blood run cold,” he said. “Add to that the high media profile the project attracted and the industry interest in our plans and to put it bluntly, we were risking our company’s reputation with this venture.”
Mack also called on UK banks to follow the example set by their continental colleagues when it comes to backing horticulture. “British banks need to gain a better understanding of the industry and growers have a big job to do to trigger further investment in the field, particularly given the financial climate. It is possible and it is possible to do it sustainably.”
Thanet Earth is still developing with more glasshouses scheduled to go up in the coming years and continuing work with Dutch partners on variety development and ways to increase yield and productivity while reducing energy requirements. However Mack stressed the importance of investment. “None of this comes cheap,” he said. “We remain at the mercy of a global commodity market and of a weak pound which pushes up some of our input costs and much of our funding.”
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