PROFILE Three Musketeers
Strength in numbers
Suff olk potato marketing cooperative Three Musketeers is creating new opportunities and new ways of thinking. Judith Tooth reports.
L
ast year’s drought hit some of Suffolk’s coastal vegetable growers par- ticularly hard. But, while
their crops were wilting under the fi erce heat, working together as the Three Musketeers gave them strength in the market place, and also prompted a rethink of the group’s core aims. “We’ve gone full circle in how
we want the business to perform,” says Ed Blanchard, managing di- rector of potato marketing group 3Ms, and its sister company, fresh vegetable co-operative Suffolk Produce. “We’ve gone from a view of just providing a marketing and oper- ational service to a mindset fo- cusing on quality, and produc- ing the right crop and variety for the market, while understanding the strengths and constraints of its growers. “With such a bad season for crops last year, we had time to re- view our current operation and ex- amine ways we could work more effi ciently. The drought had a very serious effect, with onion yields 50% down on target, sole- ly through lack of water, and po- tato yields down 20%, depending on variety.
28 ANGLIA FARMER •JUNE 2019
Knock-on eff ect “That had a knock-on effect on turnover – although, ironical- ly, we increased turnover over- all through our charging mech- anism for grading and storage. Adding value to the crop result- ed in money back to our farmer members.”
Operations are now regarded as factory rather than agricultur- al based, with monitoring of run rates, grading tonnages and costs per tonne, cutting out unnecessary activity such as certain screen changes, and increasing tonnage over shorter working days. “Brexit has also infl uenced our decision-making because it has highlighted the potential lack of staff coming into the agricultur- al sector, and here in East Anglia there are no major cities to build up a pool of people needing work. So we’re investing signifi cant- ly in new equipment to streamline our potato packing operation, re-
“
As a group we can have better discussions and negotiations than as individuals
lying on technology rather than people. “We have a good solid central
team, we’re investing in the right calibre of people, and we’ve recent- ly put 20 staff through a manage- ment training course to give them a broader perspective and under- standing of our culture.” The group’s board structure has developed, too: while farmer members still have the ultimate say, it is now more business-led, with the addition to the board of non-executive director, Malcolm Walton. Not sitting with one foot back at the farm, and not employed by the business, his sole focus is its perfor- mance.
Driving force “We’re all here to sup- port Ed: he’s the driving force, backed 100% by all the farms,” says Andrew Greenwell of Capel St Andrew Farms, who was ap- pointed chair of the boards of 3Ms and Suffolk Produce earlier this year.
“The new structure has also al- lowed us to take some of the more monotonous day to day decisions from the farms, such as who pro- vides labour and equipment, and interact more as a group,” Ed says. “It’s good for the farmers to
get around the table each week to discuss how the crops are do- ing, share problems and growing
Potato variety Maris Piper in early May on Andrew Greenwell’s farm.
3Ms and Suffolk Produce managing director, Ed Blanchard, with Andrew Greenwell, farmer member and chair, in a fi eld of carrots which will be ready to harvest in mid June.
techniques. There’s a lot of knowl- edge within the room for the newer farm managers to tap into.” “There is so much good that farmers are doing that is not broadcast, that they don’t know how to express to potential cus- tomers. By working together, pro- moting the work we are doing – >>
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