Two years ago the Bardsley family faced the prospect of either giving up grading and packing their fruit or investing heavily in more sophisticated, higher capacity facilities. They took the latter course and now have one of the country's most efficient packhous-es handling their own fruit and that of other growers whose fruit is also marketed by Norman Collett. The cost of the project, which attracted a 30% DEFRA processing and marketing grant, was around ￡650,000. And it was money well spent because the facilities can grade and pack up to 100 bins of apples and pears a day with a staff of 14 to 22 and operate for 48 weeks of the year handling only locally produced fruit.
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