NFU members scoop prizes at the Grower Awards

Several NFU members were amongst the 28 winners that scooped top prizes at the UK Grower Awards 2015 last week.

Ball Colegrave, won the award for Best Business Innovation thanks to their Trends Garden Decorators Guide and the Best New Variety: Bedding and Pot Plant for their Begonia F1 ‘Majestic Sunburst’.

Berry Gardens Growers, came away with a number of awards, including Best New Variety: Top/ Soft Fruit for their Driscolls® Solero™ Strawberries, Soft Fruit Grower of the Year (Littywood Farm), was one of two winners of the Top Fruit Grower of the Year award (Lower Hope Farms) and their agronomist, Jon Marcar, won Best Agronomist.

Vitacress was awarded the award for Best Environmental Initiative for their development of Peat Free Cress.

AC Goatham & Son’s Farm Manager, Peter Bukowski, was awarded Best Production Manager.

Boningale Nurseries’ Marketing & Business Development Manager, Thomas Stabler, won Top Sales or Marketing Professional, adding another string to NFU National Horticulture and Potatoes Board member Tim Edwards’s business.

Huntapac Produce was the recipient of the 2015 Vegetable Grower of the Year.

Laurence J Betts Ltd came away with two awards: Salad Grower of the Year, and the much-coveted overall award for Edibles Grower of the Year: Vegetable. They were praised for their innovation and commitment to bringing new products to market, running up to 500 trials of new crops each year. It was also commended for outstanding customer service.

Boxford (Suffolk) Farms were the joint winners of Top Fruit Grower of the Year with Lower Hope Farms, (Berry Gardens).

The NFU-sponsored Young Grower of the Year award went to Robert Farthing from the British Tomato Growers Association.  The Tomato Growers' Association represents British commercial tomato growers across the UK. They work to create a clear identity for high quality, home grown tomatoes and want to persuade people to look at the label to see where they are grown. They also want to emphasise and reassure consumers that growing methods are both natural and complimentary to the product and to the environment.

Majestic Trees, were announced as the winner of the Protected Ornamental Grower of the Year award. The NFU is proud to nominate Majestic Trees as the British entry for the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH)International Grower of the Year awards 2015. If subsequently selected as one of the top five nominees in the world, this nomination becomes a prize in itself as the costs to attend the contest final will be paid by the AIPH and FloraCulture International. The contest final will be held at the IPM Essen trade show in Germany in January 2016.

The Brassica Growers Association won the prize for Best Consumer Marketing Campaign (Producer) for their Love Your Greens campaign (The Little Big Voice).

National journalist and broadcaster Peter Seabrook won a standing ovation at the event after being presented with the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Judges for this year were British Grower Association's Jack Ward, crop consultants John Adlam, David Pennell, and Liz Copas, Stockbridge Technology Centre's Graham Ward, garden industry adviser Neville Stein and the National Association of Cider Makers' Richard Heathcote.

Sponsors for this year's event were: QV Foods (Headline Sponsor), AC Goatham & Sons, AG Recruitment and Management, Agrovista UK, Botanicoir, Cocogreen, HTA, Kubota, Levington, New Spitalfields Market, NFU, Quinton Edwards, Rijk Zwaan, XL Horticulture.