3,500 sq metre fully automated packhouse

Location: Ely, Cambridgeshire

Client: Fenland Glasshouse Limited

Project overview:

• 100 tonnes of steel, including trellis beams up to 16m long, prepared at our East Yorkshire factory and delivered to site
• On site foundations and civils
• Building construction
• 40mm external cladding
• 100mm cold store panels on interior walls / ceiling
• HVAC installation
• Electrical and lighting systems installation
• Climate controls installation
• Internal partitions installation
• Access and loading doors
• Support for client on internal fit-out / layout

Scope of our work:

In early 2021 we were approached to design and build a 3,500 sq metre packhouse and cold store facility to handle more than a million cucumbers and 600,000 packets of tomatoes a week, grown at one of the largest and most advanced UK glasshouses.

The facility also had to be designed in mind of the high-levels of automation used for product collection, grading, quality-checking, wrapping and boxing.

It was a unique project for us to design and project manage given the sheer size and weight of some of the steel involved to produce the largest Venlo style building ever manufactured at our East Yorkshire factory.

Our work on site included the foundations and civils, structural steelwork, external cladding, cold store panelling and installation of mechanical and electrical systems.

This project demonstrated the many skills across our business as we provided a full turnkey service from planning and design to build, environmental controls and support through commissioning and handover.