“I’m Nick Mauro. This is part of Valefresco, where we produce about 1500 acres of salads and Pak choi, on three sites. We’ve got another three farms in Evesham with glass and polytunnels. Since my cousin and I combined our families’ businesses in 2006 we’ve grown from £2.5 million turnover to nearly £30 million. The massive increase in business is especially since we bought this farm near Stratford-upon-Avon.”
“There’s always something new that you want to buy or try. Changes we make are all about protecting the crop, saving labour or diversifying.
“For example, our baby leaf crop is all drilled from seed. But it’s delicate and doesn’t like bad weather which we’ve had the last few years. In the polytunnel, it’s not a problem. We’ve built a lot, and applied to build more here to give us security of crop and we can give our customers security as well.
“We’ve got more tunnels over in Evesham, where it’s easier to get planning. Two years ago there, we built one of the largest hydroponic vertical farms in the country. It’s a hectare.
“Our hydroponic unit is part of our diversifying into herbs (some outdoors as well). You can’t produce basil easily in the UK, but we’ve got a biomass boiler that pumps the heat in and grows beautiful basil.
“Another major change is refrigeration. We’ve upgraded our cooling system here where we can get heat out of the crops quicker.”
Growing the next generation: Nick's daughter Erica is a key member of the Valefresco team
“Planning for more tunnels on this site was refused on grounds of being against “deemed heritage” even though they are temporary structures!
“We have got a fight on our hands with planning, we’re just waiting for the government to change the law.
“Meanwhile we’re looking at another change. For our whole head salad Little Gem, we harvest it into a trailer, it comes back here to our packhouse and then, handling it again, goes through a flow wrapper. We’re looking at buying a couple of rigs where it can all be done in field.
“A new rig is about £250k. We need to order two from Italy but there’s a waiting list and we won’t get them until 2027! I managed to find a couple of rigs second hand in Ireland the other day, so we can get going until the new ones come.
“Having more tunnels will guarantee crop. Bad weather has meant terrible results the last two years, losing 50% of some crops. The improved fridge is taking the heat out quicker, so the crop holds better. With new rigs we can harvest, wrap and cool it straight away saving a huge amount of labour in the packhouse. Two quarter of a million-pound rigs would almost pay for themselves in a year.”
“We’ve been a Member of AF for 8 years.
"We buy our fuel and our fertiliser – liquid and other – through them. It’s efficient."
“I’m going to see how AF can help on feed for the biomass boiler and for our next phase of energy generation.”
“More solar. We use most of our energy in the summer. We want 100 acres of ground solar. But we’re looking at floating solar, like you see in the Netherlands, on our reservoirs. It may help reduce evaporation and algae build up, and planning permission may be easier.
“On the vertical farm there is a future for robotics. That’s another thing we’re looking at from innovation point of view. But it’s costly.
For AF Member Valesfresco there's relentless pressure in producing tonnes of Pak choi, rocket and other leaf crops a week
“There has to more paid by the customers. Not a lot, just a few pence on a bagged salad would make a huge difference and take a lot of this worry and uncertainty from the business of growing.
“Government keeps saying we should produce more food in the UK, but they won’t let me build my polytunnels! And will they give me permission for more solar?”
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