Next Generation Fruit Group visit to California Part 1
Regular readers will be aware that The English Apple Man travelled with The Under 40's Fruit Group on several occasions visiting France, Poland, Benelux, and South Africa between 2010 and 2016. After The Under 40's visited Chile the 'then new committee' took the decision to 'update the module; and rebrand to 'The NextGen; Fruit Group.
Click on: The NextGen Fruit Group Committee - California 2024
The English Apple Man thanks Jake Kinderman Top Fruit Manager Tillington Top Fruit Hereford.
Jake, who is now a member of the new committee for the next Next Generation event sent me the official press release and his own account including excellent pictures from the very busy itinerary during the visit to California in May 2024.
"It was a jam packed 8 days that I believe everyone on the trip would say was a fantastic time.
Well organised, a good mix of business/growers from different parts of the UK Fruit industry.
A highlight of the trip has to be Family Tree Farms. For a business to scale up from a few hundred hectares in 2003 to 40,000 now its staggering feat.
Just a huge thank you to the committee for organising such a well run trip and setting the bar high for the new committee to try and top!
NextGen Trip 2024 - California
Jake continues: "Below is the official press release I received from the Committee this week".
'THE NEXT GENERATION OF UK GROWERS EXPERIENCE HORTICULTURE ACROSS THE POND.
NextGen Fruit Group have just returned from their bi-annual International Conference, an ambitious trip taking 53 members to California to tour a range of crops and businesses to gain a greater understanding of worldwide horticultural production. The packed agenda saw its members hosted by 14 different businesses, over 7 days, travelling over 900miles between Los Angeles to San Francisco.
NextGen Fruit Group, formerly known as the 'Under 40s', is a long standing member organisation focusing on engaging and empowering the 'Next Generation' of the UK's Fruit Industry. Supporting members by organising events as a way of creating a collaborative network of growers, tackling the largest challenges faced by growers within the UK and how best to tackle these. Members represent a range of growers, marketing desks and supporting businesses across, Tree fruits, soft fruits and viticulture.
Whilst the NextGen Fruit Group usually focuses on UK events of networking and educational visits. There is a long standing tradition of each committee offering an international trip at the end of their two year tenure, previous visits include Chile and South Africa. The aim being to give members a chance at seeing something totally different, may it be crops or growing styles, understanding similarities and differences to their own growing situations and inspire members on the vast possibilities of the industry.
The International conference aimed to cover a broad spectrum of what California has to offer. From 500hectare organic strawberry production with Driscolls growers to small scale peach and plum grower Brian Fien.
Inner city Los Angeles with vertically farmed lettuce with Plenty to rolling hills of Santa Maria and regenerative vineyards of Jackson Family Winery. Automation in the form of Advanced Farms, Agtonomy and Burro. As well as crops and production methods our members are unlikely to have experience, like large scale prepared salad production with Taylor Farms and indoor grown Cannabis with Fog City Farms. More can be seen by checking out the groups social media with more detailed account of hosts and experiences.
Commenting after the event, Oli Pascall, chairman of NextGen and managing director of Clock House Farm said, "Next Gen Fruit Group represents the best of UK horticulture, eagerness and talent. It was a pleasure to organise this trip for our members to engage and inspire the future of industry. We do it in the aim that practises and experiences will be gained and brought back to promote and develop the UK Horticulture industry. We are so grateful to our members for engaging at all opportunities, our most generous American hosts as well as our UK partners and supporters, in attending the events and supporting financially to the group and all its endeavours."
Gerard Olivier, UK & Ireland Manager at Cocogreen, represented Cocogreen as a NextGen Partner commented "It has been an honour to partner with the NextGen Fruit Group, the organisation provides such an unique way to connect with the industry and really does pull together the sharpest and most passionate people UK horticulture has to offer. The trip to California was a resounding success and an excellent way for growers to experience something new whilst deepening their relationships and network. Cocogreen are a proud sponsor of The NextGen Fruit Group, not only is it a network to share the brand and how we can help growers, but the engagement is on other levels than just sales, in regards to intrigue of experience, innovation and wider impact of Cocogreen to growers and their challenges."
Another proud Partner is Fargro, represented on the trip by Lori-Leah Griffiths, Technical and Regulatory Specialist. "The trip really highlighted the State's scale of production, as well as illustrating the challenges and opportunities currently being faced by the Californian Horticultural Sector. It was inspiring to observe different approaches to growing and processing and how to translate this back into UK horticulture. This is the reason Fargro is a proud partner of NextGen Fruit Group; the trips provide amazing networking opportunities with a fantastic group of UK Horticultural Specialists, fostering long lasting business relationships, providing invaluable knowledge sharing opportunities and encouraging further collaborations across the sector as a whole."
The trip also marks the handover to a new Committee, Alana Deacon, Head of Operations at Hall Hunter, now takes on the baton and begins to form her committee. "I'm really excited to take on the mantel from the current committee, who I thank for their sterling work and organisation over the last two years delivering a range of very successful events. As a member the group has continually inspired me and helped me to link with like-minded individuals in the industry. I am excited to continue this tradition on and by all that can be achieved"
The Next Gen fruit group is open to all young people working in the fruit growing industry, that are keen to link with others, learn and share experiences together, just visit their website.{/b>
- Ends -
The ambitious agenda saw the following;
Day 1
-Fly from Heathrow to LA, straight to Plenty.
Plenty R in Compton, LA. An ambitious vertical farming business at the forefront of technology as well as strong focus on community engagement.
Click on: PLENTY video
The Plenty Video portrays quite stunning technology - a vision of the future?
Day 2
Driscoll's in Santa Maria. Demonstrating regional focus of the business across the state and breeding succession across Cane Fruit.
Click on: Driscoll's Click on: BERRY
Day 3
Driscoll's in Santa Maria. Strawberry breeding program and variety succession. - Advanced Farm demo of robotic packhouse systems for automatically tipping and sorting strawberries
Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo. How California is prioritising their next generation, educating the horticultural leaders of tomorrow.
Day 4
Bloom Fresh, McFarland. Grape and cherry breeding and genetics and - Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo - Brian Fien, Dinuba, central valley. Small scale stone fruit production
The English Apple Man Comments
This Journal was pre-written as 'the author' had a minor Carpal Tunnel operation on Thursday 13th (yesterday) so typing will be difficult for a while.
The NextGen California visit Part Two will be published on 21st June.
Take care
The English Apple Man