Scottish herb producer keeps on growing

£2million glasshouse plan over five acres will cut reliance on imports

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A BIG investment in new glasshouses was revealed yesterday by Scotland’s leading herb producer.

Scotherbs at Longforgan, near Dundee, used a visit by the Guild of Agricultural Journalists to reveal plans to spend £1.5-£2million on five acres of glasshouses.

They will be used to extend the Scottish herb-growing season and reduce the firm’s reliance on imports.

Heating is likely to come from alternative energy sources such as a geothermal system or by burning locally grown biomass.

Scotherbs has emerged from a modest farm diversification in 1984 by former dairy farmer Robert Wilson and his wife, Sylvia.

Their daughter, Fiona Lamotte, has overseen recent expansion into a new processing base that houses 100 of the firm’s 123 staff and which is used to pack and distribute the 36 different herbs and value-added products that the business supplies to a range of customers, including most of the multiple retailers. It supplies 50% of herbs sold by Tesco alone.

The packhouse, which cost a seven-figure sum, replaced older facilities that had become outgrown.

Mrs Lamotte said: “It is pretty scary making an investment on this scale but there was really no alternative if we were to keep developing the business.”

But the Wilsons have been careful to keep a wide portfolio of customers and a significant proportion of the output leaves Longforgan in their own packaging destined for wholesale markets.

Mrs Wilson said the new glasshouses would assist the business, adding: “Horticulture has been different from other sectors in that there have been no subsidies and there has been a lack of investment. We have grown herbs abroad ourselves including in Tenerife but we would prefer to extend the season here especially for basil, chives and mint.”

Around 65% of the herbs handled by Scotherbs have to be imported. This is despite having more than 100 acres under outdoor cultivation in the Carse of Gowrie and seven acres under polytunnels.

Normally there are between 15 and 18 outdoor staff employed in planting, hand weeding and harvesting. Chemical weed control in such specialised crops is not always possible.

The family has done a great deal itself to encourage the use of herbs including at one stage running a cookery school. It is now rolling out an educational package for local schoolchildren designed to fit the curriculum for excellence programme.

But the business has expanded in recent years in response to celebrity chefs using an increasing amount of herbs in their recipes.