The Smart tunnel has significantly enhanced strength, is quick to assemble, is adaptable to fit any existing Haygrove tunnel, and has a new infrastructure which includes roll-up doors.

Launched officially at a Haygrove customer open day in August 2001, the Smart tunnel was showcased at Fruit Focus in Kent on Wednesday.

At the Fruit Focus seminar on Tuesday, Haygrove's director Angus Davison said: 'Our 10-year vision is to deliver year-on-year labour saving innovations, to continue to make improvements in the crop growing infrastructure, to deliver with a passion for payback, and to get glasshouse technology into the fields.' Haygrove's John Berry added: 'The speed of building is vital as labour costs on a farm are so huge.' The company has carried out customer research to find out exactly what its clients are looking for from tunnels. The survey found 25 per cent of customers wanted tunnel strength, 21 per cent wanted semi-auto venting, 16 per cent wanted rapid shade netting, 14 per cent wanted weather stations and 13 per cent wanted a harvest fruit retrieval system.

The Smart tunnel has been developed in response to these customer demands.

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