Members of the NextGen Fruit Group travelled to Scotland on 20 and 21 August 2026 for two days of farm visits, technical discussions and networking, marking the group’s first organised visit to Scotland since it was formed almost 60 years ago.
Originally established as the Under 40s Fruit Growers in 1967, the organisation became the NextGen Fruit Group in 2019 and now operates as a not-for-profit group for young people working across the fruit industry.
Through farm visits, technical days, networking events and educational trips in the UK and overseas, NextGen gives its members opportunities to learn from growers and other businesses, make useful industry connections and gain experience outside their usual crops or areas of work.
Despite the group’s long history and numerous visits to fruit growing regions in the UK and further afield, it had never previously organised a trip to Scotland.
The two-day programme included visits to Angus Soft Fruits, Glencadam Distillery and Croft Farm. NP Seymour was pleased to support the trip as one of the NextGen Fruit Group’s sponsors, helping members visit businesses they might not otherwise have the opportunity to see.
Angus Soft Fruits, East Seaton
The first visit was to Angus Soft Fruits at East Seaton, near Arbroath, where the group was given an overview of the business and its work across breeding, growing, packing and marketing.
Angus Soft Fruits was established in the 1990s and today supplies berries grown in the UK and overseas, while Angus Growers, its associated producer organisation, is owned and managed by 16 growers based mainly across Angus, Perthshire and Fife.
After the introduction, the group headed into the tunnels to look at strawberry and raspberry production and hear about some of the challenges of growing soft fruit on the east coast of Scotland, from managing the weather and extending the season to maintaining picking speeds and achieving the right percentage of premium fruit.
Around 95 per cent of the strawberries grown at the site are June bearing varieties, with the remaining area planted with everbearers. AVA Magnum is an important variety for the business due to its consistent flavour and shelf life.
The coastal location offers some protection from extreme temperatures, but it also exposes the farm to strong winds and storms, so the tunnels have been designed with this in mind and some remain covered through the winter. Plastic and fleece are also used to protect the crop from frost.
Technology is being used to improve crop protection and gather better information from the tunnels, but the systems being considered or introduced all need to address a clear production problem. Thorvald robots from Saga Robotics are applying UV-C light to help control powdery mildew in strawberries, working through the tunnels regularly so the treatment can be used alongside the farm’s wider crop protection programme. This is particularly useful during harvest, when conventional treatments can be more difficult to schedule because of application and harvest intervals, and growers need to protect the crop without interrupting picking.
The farm is also involved with autonomous drone technology for pollination and yield monitoring. While a person must still be present during flights, the system could provide another way to gather crop information, assess likely yields and support pollination. There are opportunities to use more technology for husbandry work, but picking still relies heavily on people and their ability to judge, handle and select the fruit carefully.
Labour remains one of the business’s biggest challenges, especially with hundreds of seasonal workers needed during the busiest part of the year. And attracting those workers is not only about pay, as the standard of accommodation, available transport and the ability to reach nearby towns and cities can all influence whether somebody chooses to work on a farm and whether they return the following season.
The raspberry tunnels provided a chance to look more closely at AVA Monet, one of the varieties developed through the AVA Berries breeding programme. AVA Monet produces fruit with good flavour and shelf life, but it must be handled carefully during picking. The crop would usually be picked every second day, although the team had been picking it daily this season to maintain quality. The aim is to produce a consistent crop and the farm is also working on its own raspberry propagation.
Glencadam Distillery, Brechin
The group then travelled to Glencadam Distillery in Brechin, owned by Angus Dundee Distillers, where the visit followed the production process from milling the malted barley through to mashing, fermentation, distillation and maturation.
Founded in 1825, Glencadam still uses traditional equipment and largely manual production methods, including a mill that has been operating for more than 100 years and Oregon pine washbacks that typically last for around 15 years.
Five tonnes of malt are milled at a time before the grist enters the mash tun with around 20,000 litres of hot water. The resulting liquid is then cooled and transferred into the washbacks, where yeast is added and the fermentation process begins.
After approximately 48 hours, the wash is ready for distillation. It first passes through the wash still to create low wines and is then distilled for a second time, with only the middle cut kept as new make spirit while the earlier and later parts of the run are recycled through a future distillation.
The spirit is matured in a mixture of casks, including American white oak bourbon barrels and larger European oak sherry casks, with the type, size and previous use of each cask influencing the final flavour.
The visit finished in one of the original dunnage warehouses, which dates from 1825 and still has a traditional earth floor. The casks are stacked three high, reflecting the height to which they could historically be lifted by hand.
Croft Farm and East of Scotland Growers
The second day began at Croft Farm, where the MacDonald family has grown brassicas since the 1970s and now produces broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and potatoes alongside fruit and other crops.
Production continues throughout the year and takes place on owned and rented ground spread across the surrounding area, which helps the business access suitable land but also creates challenges around transport, logistics and long-term investment.
Water storage was highlighted as one example. While a reservoir may make sense from a production point of view, growers cannot always justify the cost of building one when they do not know how long the rented land will remain available to them.
The group also heard about the difficulties of matching vegetable production to retail demand, particularly when crops are graded into several sizes but supermarkets require a relatively narrow specification.
When production is high, simply placing more vegetables into each pack is not an option, so growers must find another outlet for the remaining crop, often at a lower return and at a time when the wider market is already well supplied.
Croft Farm is a member of East of Scotland Growers, a grower-owned cooperative based in Cupar, whose members are spread over a large area from north to south. This geographical spread helps the group maintain a more consistent supply across the season, while the cooperative coordinates crop programmes, agronomy, harvesting, storage, marketing and packing.
Broccoli is its largest crop, with numerous planting programmes used to meet demand throughout the season, but there is also a strong focus on research, product development and finding markets for crops that fall outside supermarket specifications.
Growers Garden was established to turn surplus and visually imperfect broccoli and cauliflower into vegetable crisps, while East of Scotland Growers is also developing its work with flax following the considerable expansion of its original trials.
Clubroot remains one of the main production challenges for the cooperative’s brassica growers, but the market can prove just as difficult. Broccoli is often viewed by consumers as a winter vegetable, despite the main British production period falling during the summer, when there can be too much crop available and not enough demand to absorb it.
This prompted plenty of discussion about crop planning, customer specifications and the advantages of growers working together to gain more control over how their produce is marketed.
After nearly six decades of visits, events and overseas study tours, NextGen’s first trip to Scotland gave members a valuable opportunity to see the different growing conditions, production systems and commercial pressures faced by businesses north of the border.
We are proud to sponsor the NextGen Fruit Group, in partnership with Fendt, to help give the next generation of the fruit industry opportunities to look beyond their own farm gate or, for those working in supporting roles, beyond the businesses and clients they see every day,” said Claire Seymour, Director at NP Seymour.
“Visiting different growers and businesses gives people the chance to ask questions, compare approaches and return home with new ideas. That exchange of knowledge helps encourage best practice and supports the positive development of British fruit.
“Agriculture can also be an isolating industry, so the friendships and professional connections built through NextGen are incredibly important. Bringing people together to share their experiences and support one another is something we are very proud to be involved in.”
Thank you to Angus Soft Fruits, Angus Dundee Distillers, Croft Farm and East of Scotland Growers for welcoming the group and sharing so much information over the two days.
