The BioHub Celebrates it's 1st Anniversary

In an exciting and dynamic year of education, collaboration, and sustainable agricultural achievements, the BioHub demonstrator farm in North Yorkshire has marked a significant milestone with its one year anniversary.

The Biohub is a regenerative agricultural project sited in the uplands of North Yorkshire. Developed by RegenFarmCo, supported by Yorkshire Water, and sponsored by Levy UK + Ireland and QuornPro, the scheme has spent the last 12-months designing, developing and showcasing regenerative approaches to farming on a 92-acre plot of previously fallow grazing land.

Under the stewardship of Dr Vincent Walsh, RegenFarmCo’s founder and Head of Innovation, over 24,000 trees, shrubs, cover crops, system plants, and herbs, have been planted. These includes 9,000 fruit saplings, 2,000 perennial crops, 4,000 system plants, and over 1,000 hedgerow trees.

In addition, rows of crop alleys have been established, new water irrigation features have been dug, and beehives have been installed. Forty tonnes of ground calcium have been scattered, twenty tonnes of horse manure has been spread, and 100 kg of worms have been embedded in the soil.

This month, a further 8,000 coppice trees are being planted to support a new woodland development on the edge of the site.

Through a programme of regular educational and hands-on workshops, much of the digging, planting, and crop sowing at the BioHub has been undertaken by staff and associates from Levy and QuornPro.

Hundreds of senior hospitality and foodservice industry professionals, as well as industry leaders from across Yorkshire’s food and agriculture sector, have also attended discovery days at the farm.

In total, it has been calculated that over 800 people have visited the farm over the last year.

The benefits of the BioHub initiative to its sponsors and partners have already been immense.

Market-leading sports and entertainment caterers, Levy, have used the site to teach its culinary and operational teams, as well as clients, how precision agriculture, agroforestry, and regenerative farming techniques can help the company achieve its ambitious climate net zero 2027 goal.

QuornPro, the foodservice division of the pioneering meat-free brand Quorn, have used the BioHub site to help educate, enthuse and inspire its staff about innovative approaches to ingredient development and food production. The BioHub’s commitment to circular principles is also helping to inform and support QuornPro’s Sustainable Nutrition programme.

And Yorkshire Water have used their involvement in the BioHub project to promote their Beyond Nature programme; an environmental initiative which helps farmers on its land to take a more holistic, sustainable and biodiverse approach to land management and agriculture. Yorkshire Water activities have included inviting groups of local farmers to tour the BioHub, and facilitating discussions around how some of its systems and processes could potentially be applied to more traditional farming methods.

The success of the BioHub’s first year has seen Levy and QuornPro commit to long-term sponsorship to the project.

Both companies believe it not only offers great opportunities to engage with employees, suppliers and customers about sustainability issues across the food and farming supply chain – it also helps stimulate thinking around how the wider circular economy could be applied to other parts of the business.