The Farmers Mart Feb-Mar 2020 - Issue 67 | Page 27

FARM NEWS 27 • FEB/MAR 2020 Did you grow cress on cotton wool on your window ledge when you were at school? THAT is exactly the principle that Simon Macaulay followed when he first talked to Chris Moncrieff of Van Heineken Brothers (VHB) in Angmering, (now a housing development!) Sussex in the late 1990’s. Chris and Peter Walls, who ran the herbs business at VHB, were great innovators. Simon takes up the story: “I had recently taken over from my dad at Anglo and an old contact at M&S had told me that VHB used felt to grow cress. I took the 6 hour drive down to VHB and the lady I was due to see had forgotten I was coming. Luckily Chris is a very kind man and he took pity on me and had a chat. He was indeed growing cress on a felt but it was made from virgin materials and he liked the idea of maybe using a blend of virgin fibre offcuts-using cotton/wool and polypropylene. Growfelt was born” “For the first 6 years we supplied exclu- sively to VHB (now Vitacress). In return they helped us to bring our factory up to food grade standard and to set in place a testing regime for Salmonella E-Coli Coliforms and Listeria” However in recent years we have broad- ened out our customer base and now offer a core of three growing media products to meet the different needs of customers across Europe, the Middle East and the Far East for Growfelt, be it for retail presentation and appearance or water holding. We can offer rolls cut to bench width or smaller pads to fit trays or punnets. We are the largest manufacturer of mats for micro greens in Europe and we are never standing still. Over to Managing Director Andy Hall: “As we expand our customer base we are constantly getting set new challenges. A customer in the Phillipines wanted a mat 10mm thick as the ambient temperature demands increased water availability for the herbs. I am regularly talking to my customer in the Middle East as the demand for fresh salads grown in the area increases. He is expanding so rapidly that their require- ment has grown from orders of a total of 360,000 pads in 2017 to a 1m pad require- ment at the beginning of 2020. We also are undertaking trials to find a fully biodegradable product that meets micro and growth challenges but allows my customers to reduce their landfill costs. Not an easy one to solve but we are confident we will. We stay close to our customers, developing variants for their bespoke requirements. They are mainly small businesses like us and we try and help each other” For more information talk to Sandra Burdekin on + 44 (0)1706-853513 or email her on [email protected] www.growfelt.com/growing-media EVENTS Driving efficiency, delivering profitability Beefing up profits for far acidbuf Smaller feed bill acidbuf A healthier rumen environment Improves feed efficiency By stabilising pH levels over 8 hours, Acid Buf helps to create an optimal rumen environment for microbes to function productively. ciency. By increasing production by 5.4% from the same feed, Acid Buf can reduce the cost of production and increase farm earnings. www.acidbuf.com