Onions · Garlic · Shallots · Lincolnshire, England
The world's oldest crop,
graded by light.
We are a third-generation family business that does one thing: grow, pack and perfect the alliums on Britain's plates. From the silt of the Fens to infrared grading lines, we control every step. And we never settle.
£90m
Annual turnover
340
People employed
100,000t
Alliums packed a year
3
Generations of family ownership
Trusted by the UK's retailers and manufacturers
What we do
Six steps between the field and the shelf, and we own every one of them. Our own land, our own stores, our own graders, our own lines. Four businesses, one family, and no gap in the middle where someone else's standards take over.
01 / 06
Growing
Oldershaws of Moulton
Onions and shallots grown in the silt soils of the Lincolnshire Fens, on our own land.
Since 1948
growing heritage
Lifted, dried, and straight into our own stores
02 / 06
Storage
Moulton Bulb
Bulk stores holding crop in condition for months, so British onions reach the shelf long after harvest.
30,000
tonnes of on-site storage
Out of store and onto the graders
03 / 06
Grading
Moulton Bulb
Near-infrared grading that reads the flesh inside every bulb, to each customer's own specification. It catches the rot no eye could see from the outside.
80
bulbs a second
Graded crop splits two ways: whole into packs, or on to processing
04 / 06
Packing
Moulton Bulb
Around 100,000 tonnes packed a year, in the formats each retailer asks for.
100,000
tonnes a year
And whole graded crop feeds our own processing lines
05 / 06
Processing
Goldwood
Peeled, diced and sliced alliums prepared for retailers and food manufacturers.
5,000
tonnes processed a year
And when British supply runs short, we do not go to a broker
06 / 06
Importing
Moulton Bulb Imports
Our own sourcing programme, keeping British shelves full for all twelve months of the year.
12
months of supply
Technology & innovation
We grade onions with infrared light. Seriously.
Near-infrared grading that sees inside every bulb. Automation on the packing lines. Live operational data across the site. A research partnership with Cranfield University tackling the industry's hardest disease problem. This is farming, and it is nothing like you imagine.
See inside the machineOur values
O
Outstanding
in everything we grow, pack and ship
N
Nurture
our land, our people, our growers
I
Innovate
at the frontier of agricultural technology
O
Openness
with our customers, growers and each other
N
Never Settle
perfection is the standard, not the slogan
Our technology
We can see inside every bulb.
Our near-infrared grader reads the flesh of every onion and flags the internal rot no one could see from the outside, at 80 bulbs every second.
See how our grader worksSustainability
120 tonnes of landfill, down to one.
A 1.4MW solar array on site. Waste to landfill cut by more than 95% since 2017. Onion waste composted back into the land it came from. We would rather publish numbers we can stand behind than headlines we cannot.
See the numbers