Glasshouse specialist CambridgeHOK is forecasting its best ever financial performance this year despite the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown.
The update on the business was provided by Operations Manager Ian Dolman as part of a podcast. He said that despite the many difficulties and challenges it brought, there have also been many positives taken from the past few months.
“It is interesting as we were busy before the lockdown started and we are still forecasting to have our best year ever in terms of financial results, which is quite amazing really,” he said.
He revealed that with a number of customers already heavily invested into new projects, the firm had no choice but to find a way to continue working and deliver for its clients. One such project is the multi-million-pound state-of-the-art indoor strawberry production facility which is presently being built for Beeswax Dyson Farming in Lincolnshire.
“We are lucky to be working with the Dyson family and their farming business,” said Ian. “They had already made commitments to purchase their plants and exchanged contracts where they are going to sell their products, so if they haven’t got their facility, which was starting from a piece of turf and a green site, then they would have difficulties. It forced us to keep going, which was really good.
“Our working practices have had to change quite radically, and we had weekly planning sessions to look at the implications of social distancing and consider how we could stay trading with various new measures put in place. It has been interesting times, but thankfully we have kept going.”
Photo source: Havecon