Winners

Haith is the UK’s leading designer and manufacturer of vegetable handling equipment. Since 1964 the Doncaster-based company has helped farmers and food producers receive, wash, grade and sort vegetables as efficiently as possible.

Haith received its 2022 Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation for its Rota-Tip Up-Eject, which is used to transfer fresh vegetables onto washing, sizing and packing lines. The Up-Eject features a unique system that is safer, more efficient and more robust than conventional designs.

This year’s award is the second Queen’s Award to be bestowed on the family-owned business, which was recognised for innovation in 2010.

Since introducing the Up-Eject system, Haith has sold over 180 Up-Eject machines to leading food suppliers in the UK, Europe, Japan, Israel, Canada and the United States. In the UK, over 90% of the UK’s supermarket potato suppliers use the Haith Rota-tip, meaning Haith’s award-winning machine will have handled the vast majority of potatoes sold in Britain.

Proven performance
Haith has an impressive track record for innovation. In 1969 the company manufactured the world’s first Barrel Washer to improve both the speed at which produce is cleaned and handled. Two years later, Haith designed and patented the first-ever Flume Destoner, which allowed users to remove stones from a crop.

In 1997 Haith developed and patented the SupaFill 600, the first-ever dipping head box filler. Haith’s SupaFlow grader was designed and patented in 1998, with the first-ever patented Rota-Tip box tippler launching two years later. Haith’s root veg polisher was patented in 2004, with the company’s direct-drive Root Veg polisher and VertiFill Pro-Series box fillers being introduced in 2011 and 2017 respectively.

In the past year, Haith has utilised all of its experience of working with food producers on the supply of single machines and complete turnkey installations to develop the Pro-Line, a modular approach to delivering complete vegetable handling production lines. Scalable, energy-efficient and designed to work in tandem with Haith’s water treatment solutions, which reduce waste and increase water reuse, the Pro-Line is seen as the future of modern food manufacturing sites by Haith’s designers.