Robert Pascall

Robert Pascall

Robert Pascal runs the 420 acre Clock House Farm in Maidstone, Kent. The farm, provides fruit to the likes of Sainsbury's, Tesco and other large supermarkets.

Robert, how long have you been in the berry industry and what made you go into it in the first place?

I've been at Clock House Farm since 1987, but before that I was a chartered agricultural surveyor, so I've always had a keen interest in farming. It was actually my wife that introduced me to soft fruit farming as the farm has been in her family for generations. Here at Clock House Farm, we grow plums, apples, pears, strawberries and raspberries on 420 acres of land.

And how many members of staff do you employ to ensure all of the fruit is harvested on time each year?

There are 25 members of staff who are here all year round, and we employ about 200 people every summer to help with all the berry picking. Most of the pickers are foreign students trying to earn a bit of extra cash during their summer holidays. They all live onsite in the student village, which we've now equipped with wireless internet and has a games room.

Can you describe the process from when the berries are picked to how they end up in supermarkets?

The pickers tend to start their day at 6am and are split into teams of about 15 people. These teams then work their way through the rows of berries, picking the berries and putting them straight into punnets. The punnets are then all loaded into a van and shipped off to the packing house a few miles away. They all get labelled here and are then distributed to supermarkets.

What advances in technology have there been since you started farming?

There has been a big increase in using rigs since I started. These help support the strawberry plants. I think they'll be hugely popular in about 5 year's time. They make the whole picking process so much more efficient as the structure enables the plants to grow much higher, making it much less back-breaking work to pick the berries.

Have you come across objections from the local community over your use of polytunnels?

Thankfully, this hasn't been a problem for us so far. We have always been able to get planning permission for our polytunnels. This is probably because we don't have them covering 100's of acres at time. Instead we spread them out over the farm.