The next phase of the £4.5 million facilities upgrade to DLF’s UK headquarters at Inkberrow in Worcestershire were officially unveiled earlier this week by John Larsen, VP Sales and Marketing Greater Europe and DLF UK Managing Director Tim Kerridge.
The event, which was attended by DLF staff and the amenity trade press, marked the completion of several major developments including the fully automated Titan mixing plant, robotic packing lines, expanded UK native wildflower production and brand-new trials and showcase area deemed ‘a living catalogue’.
The major project at DLF’s amenity operations centre has been underway for close to two years and, now complete, provides a unique and industry-leading centre for seed trials, product development, training and education of staff, distributors and customers.
With its 48-bin twin mixer and fully automated packing line, Titan is now the UK’s biggest seed mixing plant. Its introduction has brought significant increases in capacity, while reducing manual handling and lead times – ensuring that, even during peak season, seed is mixed, packed and dispatched with both speed and accuracy. Titan is at the heart of DLF’s operation, supplying more than 14,000 tonnes to the UK market, correlating to almost 30,000 individual customer shipments.
Impressive scale is also now demonstrated by DLF’s UK wildflower production, with 80 acres over three sites producing 50 different native flowering species. Expertly managed by Klaas Broersma and a dedicated wildflower production team, the meadows are harvested and cleaned in-house to ensure the highest quality, before being incorporated into DLF’s native Pro Flora range and Your Countryside farm stewardship mixes.
The bright blooms of native and non-native mixtures from the Pro Flora and ColourBoost collections were looking glorious in the Worcestershire sunshine on their own demonstration plots as part of the wider DLF Showcase. The Showcase headlines 12 acres of space dedicated to amenity seed trials, allowing visitors to observe current and future species and cultivars all in one place. It will also be the base for a sizeable programme of UK testing which feeds into the global picture of climate and disease tolerance trials.
The centrepiece of the Showcase is the new ‘Living Catalogue’ – a sports and landscape zone sown with mixtures from across the DLF portfolio. Featuring a hybrid winter sports pitch, cricket wicket, tennis court, horse racecourse and golf tee, fairway and green, all maintained by Head Grounds Manager Matt Lewis, the space will become the hub for training and education as well as providing a relaxing space for staff to unwind and enjoy.
“We’re incredibly pleased to be able to finally share this fantastic asset with our team, the press and the wider industry” comments Amenity Sales & Marketing Manager Derek Marriott-Smith. “The new additions and significant investment put us in a fantastic position to support the needs of the sectors in which we operate both today and tomorrow.”