A. Pearson & Sons Ltd ( APS ) – Great Britain

APS was established in 1948 by Albert Pearson, growing produce for sale in the Manchester wholesale market. Now supplying Tesco stores with loose, and pre-packed products, (including six pack and tomatoes on the vine). This company  have a 3.2 hectares of glasshouses at our nursery in Alderley Edge, and also pack tomatoes for supplying Tesco from another UK grower, and five growers in Poland via a recently set up joint venture agreement. APS is very well known in the UK industry, and one of the partners, (Philip Peason) is the current Chairman of the British Tomato Growers Association (TGA), Technical Committee. He is also Chairman of the North West Region Horticulture Commodity Board of the NFU. APS has a history of innovation, especially in engineering within horticulture. It was the first UK tomato grower to install CHP with CO2 extraction, for which won a major environmental award in 1999.In addition, this company  were Salad Grower of the Year, and Philip Pearson was overall Grower of the year 2000. APS have now built up a strong relationship with  Partners in Poland, which we Intend. To develop, by producing environmentally friendly tomatoes for the UK and wider European markets. Its  relationship with the main customer, Tesco, is excellent, and we a pro-active in helping to reduce the amount of pesticides used during tomato production. Energy costs are a significant part of production costs, and APS are looking for any way to reduce the quantity of energy used to produce a kilogram of tomatoes. This, in conjunction with the new tax implications of burning fossil fuels is part of   reasons for choosing CHP as part of our heat supply.

Role in the project

Direct cooperation with TGA and HDC in compilation of information regarding the greenhouse energy system requirment on England, Welse and Scotland  is the main role of this company in this project. The main greenhuse energy system requirments for UK will be provided by this company.