Pro-Tech Marketing is a leader in the production sector, as a provider of polytunnels, greenhouses, strawberry table-top production, harvesting rigs and more. Anna Sbuttoni talks to sales director Rob Tasker about his perspective on UK production and his predictions for how growers can raise their game.

How did you come to Pro-Tech Marketing?

My background is as a farmers’ son and a Nottingham strawberry grower. I left the family business, EM&A Tasker in May 2006 and went to be in the management team at Hiller Farms Ltd in Warwickshire.

Our work with crop protection products spans the soft-fruit, top-fruit, stonefruit and asparagus, and beyond so we have quite a broad brush. Tunnels and greenhouses make up about 40 per cent of our sales, while machinery, harvest rigs, bed formers and plastic retrieval systems. We sell to customers in the UK and Europe, as well as further a field in Mexico, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobego, South Africa, New Zealand, Kenya and Gambia.

What are the main issues for UK growers?

Labour is the main issue to affect UK growers, but they can help themselves by choosing the right production methods. Some go for table-top production because many workers prefer to stand and pick fruit, while others favour harvest rigs. A number of farms are in a transitional state between the two.

This year, we have had more interest in table-top production and we have sold twice as many kilometres of it as we did last year.

More growers are prepared to make the long-term investment because they know or at least hope that they will make back the capital expenditure, as the system will make it much easier to manage costs. On top of this, growers do not have to worry about disease in the soil because the fruit is grown in peat bags and you can get more in a tunnel, so fewer tunnels are needed.

Is the polytunnel debate still affecting UK growers?

We do not get involved with the planning side of things, as growers come to us after they have got planning permission. As far as know, everyone who has applied for planning permission has got it, but in certain areas the structures cannot be up all the time. It is not the issue that it could have been.

What makes up Pro-Tech’s most recent offer?

One of the newest production methods to have hit the market is our new table-top growing system, in which we improved the design to get a better trust support system and make the fruit easier to pick, which was released at the end of last year.

At Christmas last year, we became the exclusive agent for the Tech 2 battery-powered harvest rig, produced in the Midlands.

Around the same time, we become one of the few UK agents for plant health product Inca, produced by Plant Impact. This is a calcium supplement that boosts disease resistance, shelf life and fruit firmness, which can be used of a wide range of fruit and vegetables including strawberries, asparagus, sweetcorn, mangoes, cucumbers and tomatoes.

The treatment, which has been in trial stages for three years, has been a big help and growers who have tried it will order it again next year. It is a foliar spray that can be applied from first flower as needed until harvest, but that depends on the crop. It is already changing things dramatically – on apples, it can almost eradicate bitter pip and on pre-bagged lettuce, it can increase shelf life by 250 per cent.

What are your predictions for how production will continue to evolve?

I think there will be a shift towards table-top production when growers can afford it. But we are going into this season on the back of two rough summers and while growers are enquiring about table-top production, but telling us that they are not going to take it up just yet. If it is a reasonable summer, we will have a lot more interest for next season.

The system makes for a long-term investment. The table-top structure itself will last indefinitely as it is made of galvanised steel, the irrigation will need maintenance and the peat bags will depend on what varieties are being grown inside, but they can last between two to four years but very few plants will be in them for more than two years.

What advice do you have for growers?

If you go to the expense of covering the crop, make sure you get the best tunnel film you can, with the best light levels, to grow the best crop and manage it the best way you can. There is nothing worse than using expensive labour to pick a substandard crop.

Producers need to keep up to date with new varieties and new production products. You need to give your crop the best possible start, especially is you have expensive plants, which is the case with most growers.

How much scope is there to improve UK production methods?

If you go back 15 years or so, there were no polytunnels – it does not take much for the industry to change radically. There will be a bigger shift when growers move into table-top production and we are just starting to see more interest in greenhouses, which provides a more permanent structure.

There could be a new variety round the corner that changes the way that the fruit is harvested.

We have a small customer base that we keep in contact with, which trials any new products for us before they are commercialised. But growers want to try new things; they want to try to get the next competitive edge.

We invest between £20,000 and £60,000 a year on research and development. The search to bring new products to the marketplace is constant. I travel to trade shows all over Europe especially, trying to find new ideas and innovations that we can expand in our marketplace.