Salads grown in giant greenhouses

By Sally Nancarrow
BBC News, Kent

Installing strings for tomatoes which will be harvested by March

Millions of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers being served on British salad plates this summer will be coming from a new giant greenhouse complex in Kent.

Thanet Earth is expecting its first harvest from three vast glasshouses by the end of next month, to be sold in supermarkets and independent shops.

The development will eventually add 15% to the UK's home-grown salad crop.

It is the first time production on this scale has been tried in the UK, although it is common in Holland.

Thanet Earth estimates that it will produce about 100 million tomatoes alone every year.

But even when the complex is at full capacity, with seven greenhouses in production, the UK will still be producing only 3-4% of its own salads.

The National Farmers' Union supports the development because of its impact on the supply of British-produced food.

"There is already is great deal of production in glasshouses in the UK, for example on the south coast and the Isle of Wight so it is not new technology," said chief horticultural adviser Philip Hudson.

"But it is bigger than other glasshouse production in the UK, so in that sense it is new."

Pepper plants arriving at Thanet Earth from nurseries in Holland

Building work got under way on the site of a former cauliflower farm, near Birchington, on the Isle of Thanet, just over a year ago.

The finished complex will dominate this corner of east Kent, covering a 220 acre site flattened from the naturally undulating landscape.

"It is amazing to think that in just one year from starting the foundations of the greenhouses they are already in production," said managing director Steve McVickers.

Thanet Earth's parent company, fresh produce supplier Fresca, is based in Paddock Wood, Kent.

It says east Kent is ideally suited to crop production, having 17% more light than other parts of the UK.

Archaeologists excavating the site found remains dating back to Neolithic times - from about 2,000 to 3,000 BC - which showed the area had been used for agriculture for thousands of years.

Thanet Earth is keen on its environmental credentials and has released the results of a study commissioned from independent consultants Bidwells Agribusiness.

THANET EARTH FACTS 220 acre-site on the Isle of Thanet with seven giant greenhouses Tomato house the size of 13 football pitches Two million tomatoes harvested every week, 52 weeks a year Peppers and cucumbers harvested from February to October Power generation able to supply electricity to 50,000 homes Plants watered every half hour by computer-controlled dripper

"When we first came up with the idea of Thanet Earth three years ago we were conscious it was going to be important to understand where we were on the sustainability measure," said Mr McVickers.

"It has actually come out with extremely low carbon emissions."

The main reason is that the greenhouses are heated using a combined heat and power (CHP) installation.

Each one has its own gas-powered engine to generate electricity, nearly all of which is exported to the National Grid.

Heat and carbon dioxide, the by-products of the power generation, are used to help the plants grow.

The greenhouses have their own reservoirs filled from water collected on site and pests diseases are controlled by predator bugs.

They even have their own bumble bee populations for crop pollination.

Locally, residents have expressed mixed feelings about Thanet Earth.

Franco Rosso, who lives in Birchington, said: "I am not against it per se, but I am against the way it all happened.

"The village locals around this area were not consulted - we were just not in the process.

"When it went through we were quite shocked because there are a lot of implications for us locally.

"There's traffic, there's noise, there's light pollution."

But Thanet Earth says there will be up to 500 employees and Mr McVicker said he had received about 800 speculative CVs, mostly from local people.

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Inside one of the massive salad greenhouses