The very first cucumbers of the new British season are set to emerge from their greenhouse at the £80m (€91.4m) Thanet Earth development in Kent, south-east England, this week.
Production volumes at the development, which boasts excellent light levels, high greenhouses and a constant warm environment – provided by a combined heat and power system that actually returns energy to the local grid – are expected to rise to in excess of the 700,000 cucumbers per week seen during peak season last summer.
The popular salad vegetable will be supplied to customers across the south-east UK in particular, including supermarkets, independent stores and the foodservice industry.
'We calculate that our cucumber production adds somewhere approaching 10 per cent to British production figures, helping to replace many hundreds of thousands of imported cucumbers with home-grown produce,' said a spokesperson for the development.
Over the space of a year, the cucumber greenhouse is set to produce enough power to supply 3,000 homes in the nearby town of Thanet, with nothing harmful put into the atmosphere as a result.
'Production levels have surpassed our best estimates,' added the spokesperson. 'Light levels have been in excess of our prediction, and this part of Kent seems to have escaped much of the extreme bad weather seen over the year.'
Elsewhere on the Thanet Earth site, the tomato greenhouse produces enough product in one week to provide more than 350,000 people with a portion of mini tomatoes.
Planning permission at the site allows for a total of seven greenhouses, but only three have so far been constructed.
'We do not yet have a timescale for the construction of the remaining greenhouses but hope that it won’t be too long before we see them built,' the spokesperson said.
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