CU LTIVATION AND TECHNOLOGY Mostly dry weather, lots of interest and plenty of novelties Grimme realised top year Product development and digitisation continue at a rapid pace at Grimme, say Christoph Grimme (r) and Sebastian Talg. Despite the dry and particularly difficult growing season in 2018, the German machine manufacturer Grimme based in Damme achieved a record turnover, announced Christoph Grimme and Sebastian Talg at their PotatoEurope stand. According to Talg, CEO at Grimme, the company achieved a turnover of 305 million euros. The total Grimme group with its subsidiaries such as the American company Spudnik realised a total of 465 million euros. ‘We were able to achieve this record turnover because potato cultivation continues to grow worldwide,’ he explained. In order to respond to this development, Grimme, as co-owner of the family business and responsible for emerging markets such as China and India, sees the arrival of a different market from that in Western Europe and North America. ‘In the new potato markets we see a growing demand for mechanisation and especially for the smaller machines. In a country like India you still see many growers with a tractor of around 50 hp. Even our smallest machine is too heavy for such a tractor. That’s why we’ve entered into a Joint Venture this spring with Shaktiman, the local family business based in Bhunava in the state of Gujurat. This company has produced a range of machines for the agricultural sector and has an extensive dealer network throughout the country. For example, Shaktiman already produces some 80,000 rotary cultivators a year. It’s also active in the development of new techniques for the market in India as well as for other countries’, Grimme explains the enormous size of the company. ‘Thanks to this cooperation, we can effectively carry out both the sales and the equally important after-sales in India. Grimme further explains that the digitisation of machinery and services is also continuing at a rapid pace. ‘In the MyGrimme programme, growers can already follow all their Grimme machinery live in the field and can save data about the plots. In this way, they can map out additional information about the plots and use it for future management decisions. We would like to link this with other data, such as storage, in order to generate an entire dataset for each potato lot, from seed potato cultivation to marketing. This will help the growers in their business operations,’ Grimme explains. ‘In addition, it’s now possible to quickly order parts via the portal. Users only have to type in the chassis number and receive a specific list of parts that they can order and pay for immediately. At Grimme, we’ve now mapped out the complete European parts stock and are able to deliver parts at lightning speed. Our goal is to relieve users of their worries and improve service. You need to replace a defective part in the field as soon as possible,’ Grimme emphasises. ‘With new machines, it’s already possible to configure them completely online. At trade shows like PotatoEurope, we notice that users already know exactly what they want and know a lot about the technology. It seems logical to me that, in the next step, customers can also order and pay for a machine online’, Grimme predicts. 30 Potato World 2019 • number 4 Pagina 29
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