UK: Fire at Bedfordshire Growers

On Thursday 19th April 2018 at 7pm a fire started at the Bedfordshire Growers site in Potton Road, Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, the building involved was leased from Bedfordshire Growers to Primaflor UK and used for their distribution of salad products. The fire destroyed significant parts of the loading bays, cold storage and packhouse facility. In total there were 70 fire fighters on site with many appliances. It is incredibly important and pleasing to report that there were no injuries to either Bedfordshire Growers, Primaflor or the Emergency services staff on site.

"We would like to pay tribute importantly to the professionalism and heroics of the emergency services, most importantly the fire service, who contained the fire and significantly limited the damage caused," stated Stephen Hedderly, MD at Bedfordshire Growers.

"We would also like to praise the support we have had from our customers and employees which enabled both business to be operational by 8am Friday morning. Which bearing in mind the scale of the fire and disruption is an outstanding performance.

"It is also hugely important to say thank you for the enormous amount of offers of support and encouragement from the produce community, this has been both overwhelming and humbling, and we thank you sincerely for those kind and proactive gestures. We are not in a position at this stage to understand the root cause of the incident and are working with the fire investigation services, however it is believed to have started on a trailer which was at the time connected to a loading bay."

For more information
Stephen Hedderly
Bedfordshire Growers
Tel: +44 1767 319224