Dutch company Bosch Growers is to acquire a 12ha nursery at Somerset, in Kentucky, USA, from start-up company AppHarvest.
The nursery, which is currently producing strawberries and cucumbers in rotation, is one of three AppHarvest built in the state since 2021 but which are now being auctioned off since the company ran into financial trouble earlier this year.
Based at Bleiswijk, family-run Bosch Growers grows 6ha of green bell peppers, largely for the UK market, and year-round blackberries under glass. It has for some time explored the potential of producing strawberries for the American market because it says the shelf-life and flavour of the fruit available to shoppers there is mostly ‘below par’.
‘Now in our sixth generation, we are driven by an enormous amount of ambition in terms of innovation and international growth,’ it says.
Two of AppHarvest’s other nurseries, Richmond and Morehead, which both grow tomatoes under a combined area of 48ha, are being sold to Equilibrium Capital, one of the company’s secured creditors, for $113 million (£90 million). A fourth, growing salad leaves, was sold to, and then leased from, AppHarvest’s distribution partner Mastronardi Produce at the end of last year.
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