New LED lighting system to enable year-round growing at tomato specialists Flavourfresh

Leading UK glasshouse grower Flavourfresh Salads Ltd was launched in 1997 and is a privately-owned multi-award winning, commercial fresh produce business, with its main site in Southport, Lancashire.

It specialises in growing tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries, operating across four sites under 17.3 hectares of glass. Of that acreage now 8,000 sq m is equipped with LED lights. This will help them produce thousands more home-grown tomatoes throughout winter. 

The new Philips lighting system by Signify has been installed by specialist teams at East Yorkshire-based CambridgeHOK and ensures a perfect environment for growing tomatoes will be provided.

The project was completed in eight weeks from placement of order to the lights being operational. "This means the company can now meet customer orders out of the natural tomato growing season, between November and February, from its Melrow site in Southport, Lancashire." 

The lighting system automatically starts if the amount of natural light flowing in the glasshouse falls below the level required.

The project has seen the CambridgeHOK team complete an upgrade of the electrical transformer on site and connect the new LED lighting to the onsite Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system, ensuring the most efficient energy performance whilst minimising greenhouse energy waste.

Tim Haworth, Commercial Manager at CambridgeHOK, said: “We have been delighted to work with Flavourfresh on this project, given it is one of the leading British commercial growers and is a company completely dedicated to growing the highest quality produce.

“It is a business which is dedicated to continuously developing its growing systems and technologies and this sophisticated LED lighting system, which has around 1,000 LED lights in total, will deliver significant benefits."

“It is a sophisticated system which ensures the lights kick in to action whenever they are needed, such as on a particularly gloomy day with limited sunlight."

“Most importantly, it will allow this particular site to become a year-round tomato growing facility, as tomato production had previously had to stop at this site during the winter months."

“This investment means they can now continue supplying their client, a leading UK retailer, between November and February with the highest quality, home-grown produce, rather than having to source it from overseas, with the current growing crop expected to be in the shops for Christmas."

“As we are a Philips Horti-partner for LED lights, we have worked closely with Philips on many installations in glasshouses and as a result can now offer and ultra-efficient service, completing this project within eight weeks to ensure it was up and running on time for the customer, even in these challenging times.”

Charmay Prout, Managing Director of Flavourfresh Salads Ltd, said: “We chose CambridgeHOK as a partner to deliver our latest LED lighting project based on their technical expertise and their ability to deliver the project to the standard we required."

“From start to finish they maintained a flexible, ‘can-do’ approach completing the installation successfully within our given timeframe. The level of support and professionalism was extremely credible and we are now looking forward to seeing the results in yield and quality from using the latest in LED technology.”