Seed specialist company Germinal has announced an investment of £5m (€5.8m) in expanded grass seed processing capacity at its Lincoln site in England.
The Belfast-headquartered company, which is part of the Openfolde Group, said the investment will fund purpose-built facilities housing new seed intake infrastructure, more than doubling seed cleaning and processing capacity.
The company said this will improve quality assurance, reduce bottlenecks during peak harvest periods and speed up turnaround times for customers across the UK and Ireland, ensuring reliable supply of Germinal’s market-leading grass and clover varieties.
The upgrade will also improve dust control and enable indoor seed handling, creating a safer working environment and removing weather-related disruption.
Solar PV
The new seed intake facility will also have a 200kW solar PV micro-generation system installed. This will support more cleaning activity during daylight hours, enabling greater use of renewable power generated on-site, helping to reduce the overall carbon footprint of operations at Lincoln.
Construction is expected to be completed by March 2027, with new cleaning and processing plant installed ahead of the 2027 harvest.
Operations manager at Germinal GB in England Matt Stevens said: “This investment is about strengthening every stage of our intake, cleaning and production operations. In doubling our cleaning capacity, we are not only increasing efficiency, but also improving the consistency and quality of what we can deliver to our customers.
“It allows us to reduce production pressures during periods of peak demand and helps us respond more quickly to customers and create a more flexible system overall. Ultimately, this means a better service for our customers and a stronger, more resilient seed processing operation at Lincoln serving our entire business across the United Kingdom and Ireland.”
