TRADE AND MARKET I NG British entrepreneur opts for cultivation specialisation I n Great Britain, you have potato trading companies, potato cooperatives and you have Whole Crop Marketing Ltd. in Kirkburn in North Yorkshire. WCM, as the sales organisation is called for short, is a bit of an outsider. It’s the initiative of two diehards in the potato business: Mark Tomlinson and David Burks. Over seven years ago, they put their heads together to jointly start a new potato business. As a result of their business experience with renowned British companies such as MBM Produce and Branston, they both got the idea that it should be possible to get more out of cultivation and trade than had been the case so far. As purchasers, all they did was travel the length and breadth of the UK, day in and day out, to look for the very best quality. Finding growers randomly and searching for some more of the very best pieces of land that are suitable for a special variety and/or purpose. Apart from the fact that it wasn’t always possible to find suitable plots, this way of doing business was also very expensive in terms of transport costs, Tomlinson recently said in an interview with a trade journal. There must be another way, Tomlinson and Burks thought. ‘Farmers shouldn’t grow what they’re told to grow. They should only produce what they’re good at, what suits their soil, and what’s in demand.’ Both prospective entrepreneurs chose North Yorkshire County to roll out their marketing plan. Plenty of potato activity The Yorkshire Wolds, a beautiful, hilly and typically British landscape, has many large farms on good potato soil. What makes the area so suitable for Whole Crop Marketing, or the total sales of the crop, is the variation in soil types: one area is suitable for seed, the other for table or French-fry potatoes. One of the big farms that’s established here is T. Soanes & Son in Middleton, which is owned by Andrew Soanes. It’s all about potatoes here; you can already see that from far away. Big, sheet-pile storehouses and sky-high stacks of cubic-metre boxes rise up above the horizon. Once arrived at Wold Dyke Farm, there’s a great deal of activity with potatoes. A forklift truck moves backwards and forwards to a big WCM truck and trailer, unloading empty boxes and loading full ones. In the boxes are table potatoes of the Harmony variety. They’ve not been stored for long, no more than a month, and they already have to go. It’s a small lot with too much rot to keep any longer, Soanes explains. ‘It contains damaged tubers that have started rotting. They were too close to the edge of the ridge and the outside row has been cut by the harvesting discs. Caused by a planting error last spring. Because it’s so hot and humid outside, we can’t control the rot in storage with outside air ventilation. Fortunately, there are still a few hundred hectares of healthy potatoes in the storeroom. The bad lot is now the first to go in the long season that’s still to follow, the farmer explains in a resigned mood. Accurate grading A similar scene is taking place in another part of the yard. Here is a truck with an empty refrigerated container ready to load seed of the Hermes variety with Egypt as its destination. They’re taken from an ultramodern, mechanicallycooled store. Three years ago, a separate hall was built in order to grade an important part of all 4,500 tons of harvested seed from around 200 hectares. The inspection and grading equipment comes from Bijlsma Hercules in the Friesian town of Franeker. Soanes explains that they’d bought the Dutch machines because they worked well logistically. ‘We were able to put the entire line together in a small part of the shed, so there was sufficient space left to place the pallets. Moreover, it only takes one liftfork truck and driver to move the boxes to and from the grading room and get the enormous amount of potatoes ready for shipment,’ he tells enthusiastically. This is the second season that the machines are being used and Soanes is also happy about the low sound level of the machinery, the perfect grading accuracy, and the low potato damage after grading. Joint marketing It’s all about potatoes here, you can already see that from far away. Big steel sheet pile storehouses and sky-high stacks of cubic-metre boxes rise up above the horizon. All the activities you can see at T. Soanes & Son on an average autumn day reflect the business philosophy of Whole Crop Marketing. Soanes: ‘WCM is currently working together with seven farms in this particular area. We market all our potatoes jointly. As growers, we don’t have to worry about that, because it’s all been arranged by Mark Tomlinson and David Burks and their staff. Thanks to the expert sales26 Potato World 2016 • number 4 Pagina 25
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