Work officially kicked off at Thanet Earth last week, the site designated to become the UK’s largest-ever glasshouse development for pepper, tomato and cucumber production.
Fresca Group owns the 94-hectare site on the Isle of Thanet in Kent, which will eventually house seven glasshouses, a 30,000sqm packhouse, a research and development centre and wildlife and education projects, creating some 550 jobs and producing salad lines 52 weeks a year. The group anticipates the project will add an extra 15-20 per cent to current UK salad production area.
Three Dutch glasshouse growing specialists - Rainbow Growers Group, Red Star Trading and A&A - have entered into partnership with Thanet Earth, and each will firstly operate one glasshouse, with the option for a second at a later date.
Steve McVickers, managing director of Thanet Earth, said: “These modern glasshouse units will be very efficient, allowing in maximum light, offering extra height, which is better for many of the crops, and utilising much more glass and far less metal structure.”
Thanet Earth will also generate its own electricity, using a combined heat and power engineering system and an on-site sub-station, from which it can then sell enough energy back to the National Grid to power 50,000 homes.
The first produce is expected to be available in November 2008, and will be sold through sales arm Thanet Earth Marketing. The on-site packhouse will be ready for the end of winter 2009, and in the meantime produce will either be packed at a small temporary on-site packhouse, owned by Robert Montgomery, who sold Fresca the Thanet Earth site, or will be taken to Fresca’s Paddock Wood operations.
“We are very fortunate to have found exceptional partners for this project, and the packing and marketing operations will bring together the knowledge and expertise of the growers with the marketing expertise of Fresca,” said Fresca Group chairman Chris Mack. “Thanet is an excellent location, with good light levels, good transport links and easy access to the National Grid, and we have been lucky to work with an imaginative and positive local authority without whom we could not have done this.”
McVickers added: “The UK salad crop industry has now realised that Thanet Earth is a reality, and that we have set some pretty ambitious targets for ourselves. This could force them to now raise their game.”
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