Long cane nurseries are the starting point of our innovative practices. We produce and grow 100% of our long cane blackberries and raspberries onsite at Burlington in dedicated nurseries. This ensures that our growers and agronomists can monitor and control the quality of our plants and berries, keeping production consistent and of the highest quality. Planted as a long cane, these plants are ‘ready to go’ and fast track the normal development process with blackberries, producing fruit in their first year of planting. 

Cold storage of plants during the winter allows us to alter the timing of our crop production to meet market demand and manage labour availability. Plants are collected in the autumn and stored in large cold storage facilities just below freezing. Cold storage allows our plants to remain dormant until they are replanted and provide sequential fruit production.

Every step of growing our berries at the Burlington site is monitored and aided by digital farming. Tracking climate, moisture, fertiliser and crop measurements to provide cloud based real-time data across the fields. The data is collected by a variety of computer programs which allow us to analyse, trouble shooting and continuously improve our growing practices. In addition to digital insights, we conduct a range of experiments and trials across production fields and in our dedicated trial tunnels. It is important to keep assessing new varieties, improving crop management skills, exploring planting densities as well as seasonal crop strategies.

Burlington Berries is connected to world class technology. In collaboration with Dogtooth Technology UK, we have been investigating and trialing the use of robotic pickers with computer vision and machine learning. These robots provide data related to the harvesting of soft fruits and yield forecasting to improve crop analysis.

Once harvested, our unique pack house facility and pack house team ensure that the quality of our berries remains high. Intake cooling, temperature controls, packing lines, additional quality control checking, and minimal handling contributes to the longevity and great taste and texture of our berries.

The final and one of the most important roles that technology plays on our farm is on seconds quality fruit management. We monitor crop seconds as a main Key Performance Indicator. This gives us weekly data from each field about quality breakdown, allowing us to focus and target our strategies. We also ensure all crop seconds are either reused within the farming business or sold for processing.