The import-export game is one of the most challenging arms of the fresh produce trade but, by investing in a number of sources to achieve 12-month supply of high-quality salad products and continuing to grow the business, Steve Cornwell and Morna Blair-Cornwell have worked hard to make Spania Fresh stand out in a competitive market.
Spania Fresh picked up the Christian Salvesen Importer of the Year award at Re:fresh last year and, since then, the company has continued to move forward. “Winning the Re:fresh 2007 award has had a big effect on the way we operate the business in that it has really inspired us,” says Steve. “We have a great management team in place, and we saw entering the awards as an opportunity to record and collate what we have been working on and what we have achieved, and present it to the industry.”
“We saw the Re:fresh award as a tall order to achieve, but we did it, and it showed us that we can do anything,” adds Morna.
The Essex-based production and packing site, in Nazeing, is home to both importer Spania Fresh and the UK packing operation, ScSmb Produce Limited, both headed up by the pair.
The businesses are growing steadily, with turnover from the UK operation reaching £20 million, while imports from the Netherlands turn over £12m, the Canary Islands £5m, and Spain £3.5m. The importer celebrated its 10th anniversary on the Nazeing site in March, in which period around £6m has been invested across the whole business.
Spania Fresh has succeeded in reaching the final of the Re:fresh importer category again this year, and senior production supervisor Giorgio Lercara, who has worked at the company for seven years, has also reached the final of the MorePeople Young Person of the Year.
The last 12 months have seen a number of steps forward for the business, which has continued to put its team and its customers at the centre of what it does. The Spania Fresh motto - Growing Together - illustrates the way the business operates and the values that make up the backbone of the operation.
“Growing together is everything to us,” says Steve. “It is not just growing the products, not just the development of our customer base, but about the staff, about everything from base level. We believe in growing together and that is why we invest in everything, right across the business.
“Morna and I are partners in marriage and partners in business - 50:50 in everything - and we think of the whole thing as our family,” he adds.
The process of entering the Re:fresh awards and getting into the final, before winning the award, encouraged Steve and Morna to think carefully about the business and the best way forward in a competitive market. The entry was submitted by Morna’s sister, Karen Oldfield, who heads up the HR department.
“If you look at the number of years we have been in the trade - me for 34 years, Morna about 20 - we have progressed in our business life, but this does not mean you necessarily push yourself forward,” says Steve. “You do what you do every day, but you don’t always tell the industry what you are doing, you just get on with it. In the end, we decided that was the wrong attitude to have.
“There is a lot of mutual respect in the industry and have decided to speak up about what we do.
“We invest in our business, our staff, suppliers and customers, and we wanted to show everyone that we care about what we do.
“We did not enter to win, but rather to show people what we are about, and there was competition from other fantastic companies. We were happy to be in the final, but to win was a bonus.”
The expansion of the company overseas, in the Canary Islands, as well as Spain and the Netherlands, has been key to taking the business forward and scooping the industry prize. The 12-month availability achieved from the range of sources in which Spania Fresh has a presence has helped drive sales. Growers in Spain and the Netherlands supply exclusively to the importer, which alongside its own production in the Canary Islands and in the UK, has secured consistent and high-quality product, all year round.
Spania Fresh Canarias has produced cucumbers since 2005 and tomatoes since 2006, on 80 hectares in the Canary Islands. “This posed a real challenge for us, especially when you consider what has been happening in the country over the last few years,” says Morna. “There has been some complacency, and growers have struggled with investment and a bad reputation.
“We started with cucumbers after we took over a grower who was retiring, so we stepped in and saved jobs, and took it from there. Then we did the same thing with a tomato grower, and last year was our first season producing Canary Islands tomatoes.”
“This was a big investment,” Steve adds. “Where there is a general decline of Canary Islands production of 30 per cent year on year, with growers being forced to close down, we have been able to increase our production by 25-30 per cent.
“We saw the potential, but it has been hard and we have reaped the rewards. We have our own production out there, which gives us full control of the product, and gives us the edge on our competitors.
The Canary Fresh brand has made its mark on the sector, with some two million six-kilo packages imported from the Canary Islands to the UK each year, across all lines.
“The natural way to expand our exports would be to produce more vine tomatoes, because that is what the UK market wants,” Steve says.
A wide range of cucumbers and tomatoes are produced in the Canary Islands and in the UK and, in order to expand the product portfolio, peppers in all colours are being trialled with co-operative Collicam.
“We have invested in technological development and trials for different varieties of all our products, especially in the Canary Islands, where we have really worked on production methods,” says Steve. “We are trying to move away from the use of pesticides and make the most of integrated pest management.”
The management team is confident that the future of the trade lies with conventional product, grown using limited amounts of pesticides. Some 10 per cent of production used to be organic certified, but this proportion has shrunk considerably, in favour of conventional produce grown with reduced pesticide input.
“The way conventional produce is going, with growers using fewer and fewer pesticides and opting for natural predators instead, I do not think the organic market is going to grow as much as you hear in the papers,” says Morna. “We feel we have a responsibility to use fewer pesticides - which is almost organic - rather than convert areas to certified-organic production, which is less cost effective.
“The cucumber crop in the Canary Islands is totally pesticide-free and we are planning for our tomatoes to be pesticide-free as well,” she explains. “A lot of our UK crops are almost free from pesticides, and this is something we are continuing to work on.”
Steve and Morna are looking to increase the range of sources they are involved with and plan to build relationships with growers in Peru and Chile in the next year, with a view to start importing blueberries and other fruits, possibly from 2009.
Back in the UK, they are seeking planning permission for a 4.5-acre piece of land adjacent to the Essex site, with the intention of investing up to £2m to redevelop the land to create a bigger premises or use the area for additional production.
“We are thinking ahead all the time,” says Steve. “In the 10 years since we formed Spania Fresh and ScSmb on this site, we have never stood still. We see every year as a different year and we never stop considering our options.”
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