West-Yorkshire based salad growers WS Bentley (Growers) has secure funding to help aid its expansion plans.
The company, which includes the B Sow Healthy brand grows salad cress, pea shoots and micro greens. All the company’s produce is grown year-round in Yorkshire, soil free, hydroponically, with no pesticides and herbicides used.
To help it adapt and improve its infrastructure, Virgin Money has arranged a 5-year CIBL of £800,000 to help finance the £1.85m capital expenditure costs of fitting out new glasshouses and expanding its packing capacity on its site.
Since its launch in 1996, the company has grown from selling directly to one leading supermarket to now supplying seven.
Jan Bentley, Managing Director of WS Bentley said: “Continually assessing the market and its fluctuations has always been integral to our business.
“I was really keen to expand and diversify our product range, and most recently identified pea shoots and micro greens as real gaps in the market which we could capitalise on using our existing facilities and expertise.”
In 2020 Virgin Money provided a £500,000 fully-amortising five-year loan to cover costs of equipping a new glasshouse, a new annex e and the expansion of existing glass space.