NIAB EMR - the UK’s largest independent funder of horticultural research

Bearing fruit

Brief

• Strengthen industry and public awareness of the role of the East Malling Trust as the UK’s largest independent funder of horticultural research. 


Results and highlights

• The issue of food security - and how growers can adapt to climate change - is of national importance, with the role science can play being increasingly recognised.
• The trust has been at the heart of the horticulture industry for 75 years and recently through briefings, hosting ministerial and MP visits, and the work of its chief executive Adrian Padfield and chairman Will Sibley, alongside Maxim, it now has a wider level of awareness.
• Funding is a key issue for the industry, and Maxim works with EMT and has briefed it on the emerging Local Economic Partnerships, Kent County Council, as well as Defra.
• Specific projects have included promoting EMT’s attendance at the Chelsea Flower Show.
• Securing the visit of the Secretary of State for Defra to East Malling Research and EMT successfully raised their profile and nurtured its relationship with the industry and press, and generated subsequent meetings at the House of Commons. 

• The trust has an extensive 550-acre estate and invested in innovative orchards in partnership with Sainsbury’s, Chingford Fruits and AG Thames, as well as growing Kent’s first commercial melons with Mack Multiples.
• To support its work, EMT has created a strong commercial property portfolio on the estate, managed by Smiths Gore and promoted by Maxim.
• EMT recently struck a deal with high-end residential developer Millwood Designer Homes on the site of the former Ditton laboratories, after achieving planning permission.