For more than 25 years Douglas Kemp has been at the centre of the development of the UK soft-fruit category, guiding growers around the world and influencing policy decisions at the highest retail levels through the sheer weight of his experience.
The healthy combination of having first a retail background and then, from 1952, becoming a wholesaler, helped Kemp to subsequently create a solid and successful distribution platform. He did this first for AFI in 1966, and then he repeated the formula to establish the name of Kentish Garden. His cross-sector knowledge affords him a unique insight - particularly as it is a lesser-known fact that during the latter period of his career he was also a grower.
The Re:fresh accolade was the latest in a long line of recognitions of his achievements. His undoubted multi-faceted business acumen, coupled with an undying enthusiasm for the products he nurtured, won Kemp the prestigious triennial Lewis Award from the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers. He also picked up this year’s president’s award from the Kent County Horticultural Society, which was presented to him by Lord Leigh Pemberton, in January.
He also found time to take on the duties of chairman of Western International Market Tenants’ Association at the crucial stage in the early 1970s when the market moved from Brentford to its Heston site.
He went on to represent the distributive trade as the last president of the National Federation of Fruit and Potato Trades before it was transformed into the Fresh Produce Consortium.
Today, Kemp has moved seamlessly into the virtual world, or at least he is what he refers to as “virtually retired”. True to form, this does not mean he does not work, as he still modestly admits to being a consultant to Redbridge, which acquired AFI, and a non-executive director of ReDeva - its specialist variety-breeding subsidiary.
And equally modestly, when reviewing his past successes, Kemp is quick to acknowledge the help he has had from his world-wide soft-fruit network.
“Support has come from the whole industry - my own office colleagues in sales and administration, the chairmen of KG, members of British Summer Fruit, the retail trade and of course all the growers, who in the soft-fruit industry are a very special breed. None of us could achieve anything without that,” he says.
“What I would like to think people remember is that I had some influence in taking growers up to the front line of the retail trade so both parties reached a better understanding of each other.”
A quarter of a century and more of course brings all manner of changes, and Kemp has embraced and ridden with each and every one. Key amongst them, he singles out the increasing dominance of the multiple sector, the development of new, major production sources, and most recently the arrival of exclusive trade-marked varieties.
Fruit, packed in wooden containers and often left in the sun as it was picked is a distant memory. Today it arrives, as a matter of course, in clear plastic lidded punnets - a conception pioneered by Kemp well before it became commonplace in the US. Pre-cooling and cool chain continuity are seen as a given, thanks in part to more revolutionary work by Kemp, but still vitally necessary practice, whether the source is the Mediterranean, mainland Europe or the UK itself.
He looks out today on a UK industry that is unrecognisable from the marketplace into which he sold his first strawberries and raspberries. “Then it was an overnight supply business,” he remembers.
He has been particularly impressed during the last decade with the impact that the UK’s marketing desks as a unit have had in substantially driving the business on. “They all deserve a lot of credit,” he stresses.
Looking at the wider picture however, he feels that while the soft-fruit category has moved successfully from niche to mainstream, the berry fruit industry must guard against its products becoming commodities.
“Volumes have increased for a number of reasons other than simply because everyone enjoys summer soft fruit,” he says.
“There has been a period of expansion which would have never taken place without the establishment of Producer Organisations. This encouraged investment, particularly in additional glasshouse capacity and tunnel production.
“In turn it was the catalyst to extend the season, which not only starts earlier, but stretches until the late autumn - long after the last Elsanta has been picked.
“In one sense, this is of course good news because, at the present time, growers have achieved a high level of confidence, re-enforced by retailers becoming increasingly interested in selling more soft fruit and now giving raspberries more shelf space.”
When surveying the soft-fruit scene, Kemp never forgets blueberries, which he foresaw as a future winner many years ago. “Today their phenomenal popularity with the public as a healthy ‘superfruit’ is the talking point in the industry,” he says. “I believe that blueberry sales will ultimately become as significant as raspberries.”
Positives aside, he also admits to feeling slightly uneasy, mainly because there is a danger of losing seasonality forever. “Most berry fruit is available year-round from many sources, rather than following the established natural seasons, and this is already impinging on the UK season. As a result, the policy of defending our industry in-season has been weakened because of the marketing desks’ commitment to category management.
“This dictates that imports are needed to fulfil orders, removing any possibility of relating price to demand and supply,” he says. “And the situation is compounded as retailers use price virtually as the sole instrument to boost sales.”
Longer term, he has no doubt that there are more strawberries on the way, beyond established suppliers across Europe, the Mediterranean Basin and the US, all trying to win more market share. “Yet, unproved sources from the enlarged EU such as Poland and Hungary could prove to be a Trojan horse,” he adds.
“English growers have already seen their returns eroded across all sectors of production. Apart from regular increases in costs of picking and production, there are those entailed when actually meeting customers’ specifications.
“These have only been met by increased yields, which I now believe are near their limit. It has reached a point where mid and late season varieties are often considered below standard due in many cases to weather conditions aggravated by climate change.”
Despite impending difficulties, Kemp still displays enormous faith in the resilience of growers.
“While production units are becoming bigger, there are still opportunities for the specialist,” he says, pointing most recently to the resurgence of the Scottish industry.
Though now 74 and prepared to admit that he is watching mainly from the sidelines, Kemp is still fascinated by an industry which he says will become evermore demanding for all those who work within it.
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