5
THECOMMERCIAL GREENHOUSEGROWER • MARCH 2017
NEWS •
GrowingUnderground
supplyOcado
GrowingUnderground, the revolutionary farm based in aWorld
War II bomb shelter 100 feet beneathClapham high street,
have launched their first retail range supplying toOcado.
The five saladmixes that will form the initial Ocado range
include, English-mustard leaves, broccoli shoots andpea
shoots. Italian – salad rocket, garlic chives and pea shoots.
Indian – fennel, coriander and pea shoots. Asian – purple
radish, coriander andpea shoots. Japanese –wasabi
mustard, pink stem radish and pea shoots.
The farmwas founded five years ago, by entrepreneurs
StevenDring, RichardBallard andChrisNelson and has
secured the backing of chef Michel Roux Jr, who oversees
produce from a taste perspective.
This is the first major retail deal for the business, which
has been supplyingmicro herbs and salads to London
wholesalers, farmer’smarkets andMichelin-starred restaurants.
New produce trials are happening all the time and the farm
has the capacity to quadruple its growing space as demand
increases.
First large scale commercial
vertical farm in Europe
Philips Lighting has announced that Staay FoodGroup, a
leading fresh fruit and vegetable company, is building the first
of its kind vertical farm in Europe, inDronten, theNetherlands,
usingPhilipsGreenPower LED horticultural lighting. The facility
will start operating in the second half of 2017 andwill serve
one of Europe’s biggest supermarket chains. It will be used
for testing, and optimizing processes for future, larger vertical
farms.
The 900m2 indoor vertical
farmwill have over 3,000m2
of growing space and
produce pesticide-free
lettuce. Staay, Philips
Lighting and vegetable
breeder Rijk Zwaan
collaborated and undertook
intensive research over the
past three years to determine
the best combination of
lettuce varieties and growing
regimes in order to improve crop quality and yields.
WimGrootscholten, marketing and business development
manager for Rijk Zwaan, said: “The testswe are conducting
within this project are enabling us to identifywhich varieties are
optimal for growing in a vertical farm, and alsowhich varieties
HomeOffice, they couldmanage such a scheme as they had
in the past.
Mr Chinn said his family business, which employs up to 1,000
seasonal workers, recruiting them directly from eastern Europe,
was having to speak to eight people to secure one staff
member compared to a ratio of three to one last spring. “It’s
getting noticeably harder,” he said.
But he added that there “simply isn’t the labour pool in the EU
for thework that needs doing” and he described the threat of
UK borders closing toworkers from abroad as ‘cataclysmic’.
“Horticulture employs half amillion people,” he said. “That’s
the same as the automotive and aerospace industries
together. Don’t leave us out in the cold.”
Over the last five yearsCobrey Farms had invested £3million
in automation to improve productivity. “But fundamentally it’s
making us treadwater in terms of cost of production and is not
lowering our reliance on unskilled harvest labour significantly,”
saidMr Chinn. To automate further, for instance in being able
to ‘mow’ asparagus fromplants that sent up several stems
at once in a glasshouse system, would depend on plant
breeding and, for such a small sector as asparagus, that was
at least 15 to 20 years away.
DavidCamp, chief executive of the Association of Labour
Providers, said horticulture had not had such difficulty in
sourcing labour since before 2004, when 10 newmember
states joined the EU. “The industry barely scraped through the
peak leading up toChristmas,” he said. “Thewisdom is that
wewon’t scrape through this summer. Action is urgent.”
Hishtil acquire
Dianthus breeder
Hishtil Nurseries have announced the acquisition of the
Dianthus activities of Ringel Nurseries.
Founded in 1958, Ringel Nursery has specialised in the
production of unrooted& rootedDianthus cuttings for the
Europeanmarket. Introducing the highly successful ‘Roselly’
range of pot carnations &more recently the ‘Summers’ range
of garden pinks.
Under the agreement all Dianthus activities of Ringel Nursery
will be transferred toHishtil in a phased transitionwith the
target completion date of 1st May 2017. Avi Hoffman&
Moshe Zwiebel will remain as consultants toHishtil in a
technical capacity ensuring ongoing support in the stock plant
production, propagation& variety selection.
TheDianthus productionwill be transferred toHishtils
NehalimNursery in central Israel & added to theHishtil young
plant production. Established in 1974Hishtil has grown to
21 hectares of young plant production across 4 sites in
Israel. Specializing in the production of herbs, vegetables &
ornamental plants aswell as certified organic lines supplied to
growers &propagators around theworld.
