Horticultural building specialist CambridgeHOK says it is on track for its best ever financial year as it has become more efficient and forged "stronger partnerships" during the pandemic and lockdown.
The East Yorkshire firm, which builds commercial glasshouses, vertical farming and renewable energy systems, is working on projects including Sir James Dyson’s state-of-the-art multi-million pound strawberry production facility in Lincolnshire.
Operations Manager Ian Dolman gave an update on the business as part of a podcast hosted by Britian’s Energy Coast Business Cluster.
He said: "It is interesting as we were busy before the lockdown started and we are still forecasting to have our best year ever in terms of financial results, which is quite amazing really.
“The biggest difficulty when lockdown started was the uncertainty as to what was going to happen and how long it was going to be extended, which really made planning difficult as typically we have around 30 projects going on across the 海角视频 at any one time.
“Some of them slowed down and for some access was completely restricted, particularly Government sites as we do a lot of work with the horticultural aspects of universities. They pretty much shut overnight but we kept a key part of the workforce going."
Mr Dolman said the company had had to find a way to keep delivering for clients already invested in new projects.
That includes the indoor strawberry farming production site being built for Beeswax Dyson Farming in Lincolnshire. Site works were due to start within days of the lockdown being imposed at the end of March.
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Mr Dolman said: “We are lucky to be working with the Dyson family and their farming business.
“They had already made commitments to purchase their plants and exchanged contracts where they are going to sell their products, so if they haven’t got their facility, which was starting from a piece of turf and a green site, then they would have difficulties. It forced us to keep going, which was really good.
“Our working practices have had to change quite radically and we had weekly planning sessions to look at the implications of social distancing and consider how we could stay trading with various new measures put in place. It has been interesting times, but thankfully we have kept going.
“One of the really interesting things has been how people have interacted with each other. More than anything is that have all recognised that we are a community, and by that I mean our suppliers, our customers, our colleagues and our colleagues’ families.
“Our partners have come closer to us now through the way they assisted us, and we have supported them to come through these difficult times also. That has been really good to see. We hope it continues.”