It bought the site from Gowrie Growers and installed high-tech kit to pack locally grown strawberries for sale throughout the UK.

Co-operative Farms, part of The Co-op Group, is the UK’s largest farm company and grows food for the chain’s Grown by Us range.

Strawberries grown at Blairgowrie will be trucked to Longforgan where they will be checked, weighed, sorted and packed before being distributed.

Co-op eventually plans to use the kit to pack Grown by Us broccoli. It also has farms in Aberdeenshire and Berwickshire, and a potato-packing unit, also near Dundee.

Co-operative Farms head of vegetable operations Rob Hull said: “Longforgan will help us get fresh strawberries into our shops and to customers as efficiently as possible.”