The company behind the Thanet Earth project in Kent told agricultural industry representatives this week that UK banks do not have the capacity or knowledge to support large-scale horticultural projects.
Christopher Mack, executive chairman of Fresca, told this week’s English Farming and Food Partnership’s (EFFP) conference in London that, in creating the huge salad-growing site, the company tried in vain to find British backing, but found financial institutions lacking.
To address this issue, EFFP is looking at ways to increase investment and prevent UK financiers from lagging behind their continental counterparts.
Mack told the sixth annual conference on Wednesday: “We found it simply impossible to raise the finance we needed to build the glasshouses in the UK. The UK banks just didn’t understand what we were trying to do.
“After this, we spoke to our Dutch correspondent and took our business there, as we couldn’t find a financial institution in the UK that understood our business and had confidence in it.”
The Thanet site is a collaboration between Fresca and Dutch producers Rainbow Growers, Kaaij Redstar and A&A Growers, and features three salad glasshouses with further expansion planned.
Mack added: “We were actually trying to drive some competition in the UK market, but the banks didn’t grasp that.”
EFFP chairman Steve Ellwood told delegates that the farming body is “trying to develop a model to locate and identify individual investors who might be interested in this area. There has been investment in eastern Europe, so there is an interest.”
He continued: “There is a real gap in the market and a gap in funding that needs to be addressed and some specialist knowledge developed.
“There are a lot of foreign investors using their own money who have invested in the UK and are prepared to take a long-term view to generate their rewards.”
Ellwood said EFFP would be looking to set up a series of committees to screen potential investors in UK farming and to develop a mechanism to open up opportunities to the wider investment community.
He added: “EFFP actively engaged in developing a model which will create a broker between individual investors and business in the short term, in due course demonstrating opportunities to the wider investment market.”
The conference looked at how agriculture and horticulture can find a way out of the recession and the key theme of collaboration - with businesses working together throughout the supply chain - was advocated throughout the day as a stable and practical solution.
EFFP chief executive Siôn Roberts said: “We need to ensure flexibility... Collaboration needs to be brought into objectives that are mutually agreed.”
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