On Thursday 12th May a group from the Deben farm Club visited the 12.5 ha the new glasshouse recently completed at Ingham near Bury St Edmunds. The site is operated by Abbey View Produce Ltd and produces Bell Peppers supplying the supermarket trade. With production from early March to October they produce about 3% of the total UK market from this one facility using the latest state of the art technology. Heat is provided from the nearby water treatment plant and automatic ventilation and shading technology keeps the glasshouse at the optimum temperatures for growing. Green, yellow and red peppers are all produced on this site and transported to Essex for packaging. 35 Full time employees are located here with additional staff being brought in at peak times. As much effort as possible has been employed to keep the facility as carbon neutral as possible, the rain water is harvested from the roof and recycled where ever possible. When the glasshouse is fully operational 330,000 plants are in situ and each requires 3 litres of water per day!
The morning was concluded with a lovely lunch at the local pub in the village.
Members comments below
“Thank you very much for a very interesting tour. It is an amazing set up, and the integration of renewable heat and power was impressive. I was very interested in the growing techniques and fertigation. Amazing to grow so efficiently using just straight fertiliser and no soil”
“It was a most enjoyable visit”
