Eastern area visit Hensby Composts Ltd, St Ives, Cambs

摘要

Our first impression of Hensby Composts was two bright yellow, arms-waving, broadly-smiling, car park attendants. They were also offering inducements of tea and biscuits. On closer inspection they turned out to be Jeremy Jacobs and Mike Hayward welcoming growers and other members of the industry. Even other composters. For those unfamiliar with the yard it is in many ways an ideal one. It is in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I'm not even sure which county it's in, it's that remote, but for compost production what else do you want? It's also large. There are no problems of space except perhaps maintenance one day of acres of concrete. A composter's dream site. The Hensby began making phase I at Woodhurst in 1965. Perhaps their greatest claim tofame was to be first in the field in Britain supplying spawned phase II compost in bags. From memory this was in the mid-1970s and it also made them amongst the first in the country to adopt bulk phase II technology. They also helped to pioneer the use of blocks, as opposed to bags, opening up a whole new range of customers who could then adapt existing systems to spawned phase II. In 2000 Blue Prince acquired a controlling interest in the company which now supplies phase I, phase II and phase II centredot V or spawn run blocks (SRBs) to it's customers. After the tea and biscuits and exchange of news we were conducted round the site in small groups beginning with the dispatch areas. We were able to see blocking and bagging machines as well as a sampleof 16-day spawnrun blocks.