A FIRM set up in the 1980s with the founder Robin Strongman bagging up nuts and dried fruit and selling them to shops and door to door, is expected to hit a turnover of some £26million this year.

It will be a record, up from £21.5m in 2021.

New Forest-based Harvest Fine Foods is a familiar brand - its 40 distinctive delivery vehicles criss cross the roads of Hampshire and Dorset (and across the south) each day, serving pubs, restaurants, hotels, schools, care homes, hospitals and many other customers, including the fine dining market.

And commercial director Steve Whitwam says the firm has enjoyed compound growth of 20 per cent every year between 2010 -2020.

Over the decades the family business has diversified in terms of customer base and products.

The current managing director, Richard Strongman, son of founder Robin, has driven that diversification.

“We now deliver everything from fruit and vegetables, to butchery sales and alcohol products,” said Mr Whitwam.

“You can pretty much get everything from us, fresh food, tinned, frozen, chilled and some non-food products.

The company, which employs around 160 staff moved from Christchurch to a 56,000 square feet warehouse in Totton in 2016, having outgrown its original home.

About 75 per cent of customers closed in the pandemic so the firm delivers to 14,000 homes as people were reluctant to go out shopping.

And Steve said the business had achieved it ‘zero to landfill’ target last November with every waste stream now having a recycling outlet.

“Reducing our carbon footprint and establishing a co-ordinated and comprehensive environmental approach has been central to everything,” he added.

All black plastic has been removed from its own label products. All cardboard and heavy duty shrink wrap is baled up and taken away for recycling along with all paperwork.

Vegetable peelings go to a New Forest pig farmer for the animals and sugar products to beekeepers to support honey production.

Lighting in the warehouse has motion sensors and only comes on where staff are working.

The delivery fleet is fitted with route optimisation software and the drivers receive fuel efficiency training. Meanwhile the company car fleet will be fully hybrid by the end of the year.

Mr Whitwam said: “What’s humbling is this isn’t something that’s just important to the board of directors, it’s important to everyone in the business and we are all constantly questioning and challenging each other.

“That’s also part of the reason the company is experiencing such success.”