Q: What does the FCC aim to do for the UK fresh produce industry?
A: The Food Chain Centre was set up on the recommendation of The Curry Commission on the Future of Farming and Food to help ‘reconnect’ members of the food chain and to help improve the profitability of farming.
The FCC’s role is to help improve the efficiency of the chain and also the flow of information, across all farming industries. Its aims for the fresh produce industry are the same as for other farming sectors - to help the UK to develop an efficient, competitive and profitable UK food chain by providing information on business management and business improvement techniques that producers can adopt.
Q: What have been the FCC’s most significant achievements in this area to date?
A: The Food Chain Centre has conducted a wide range of pilot programmes in the fresh produce sector aimed at improving business competitiveness. Two projects with a significant horticulture focus are our Value Chain Analysis and Masterclasses.
Value Chain Analysis involved mapping the fresh produce supply chains from the grower to the ultimate consumer to identify where improvements can be made.
This work has focused on different fresh produce sectors including potato production, basil, leeks and even a fruit for schools project. The results have delivered benefits to the 20 companies which took part, and, like most of our work, the key learnings are available online for others to learn from.
To give just one example, a VCA with a leek growing firm led to a cost reduction of 40 percent, quality improvements of 34 percent, and delivery time reduced by 81 percent.
Masterclasses were developed in the motor industry and are delivered by specialists working for the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) Industry Forum in recognition that farmers and food processors can learn from other industries and use proven techniques that help to reduce cost and improve quality.
All Masterclasses involve ‘learning by doing’ and are conducted on the shop floor or in the field over a period of three months. They aim to maximise the potential of available resources by reducing waste and through better organisation.
There have been 10 Masterclass projects in the horticulture industry. To give just one example of cost savings, one Masterclass helped apple growers Adrian Scripps improve their bottom line by £28,000 per year. The case study can be downloaded from our website.
In each case, the firms we worked with have benefited from greater efficiencies and improved margins, but many of the learnings are applicable elsewhere, which is why we have made them available from www.foodchaincentre.com.
Q: What new projects/research are you currently working on for growers?
A: Part of the FCC brief is to facilitate access to market research data for farmers, and this is part of that intention. With this in mind, we have recently published the results of our collaboration with market research agency CACI, which provides data of the precise locations of consumers who want to buy a particular product.
Q: How does the FCC compare the UK supply chain to those around the world?
A: We are always keen to learn about best practice overseas, but we do not compare the UK industry as a whole with global competitors. However, we do know that the work we have been carrying out over the past five years now forms the biggest test of food chain improvement techniques anywhere in the world.
Q: What is Hortbench and how does it work?
A: The FCC has always seen increasing awareness of the potential benefits of benchmarking as a priority and the UK now leads the world in the quality of its farm benchmarking services.
Hortbench is a service we offer to most fresh produce growers. It puts into practice our vision on farm benchmarking by providing business clubs for growers that enable the sharing of best practice based on an understanding of production costs.
Q: What work are you doing surrounding organics?
A: Clearly organics is a growth area, and an opportunity for British growers. Two of our Value Chain Analyses were for organic products, while a number of our Hortbench participants are organic vegetable groups. However, many of the non-organic projects offer learnings for organic producers, and vice versa.
Q: How has the UK growing scene changed since the FCC was set up?
A: We do not carry any analysis of the industry as a whole, but we have seen much greater focus on the adoption of business improvement and marketing tactics. To give just one example, almost one in three farmers (32.9 percent) now benchmarks in some way, compared to just eight percent back in 2002, according to FCC research of almost 1,000 UK farmers.
Q: What trends do you predict will make the biggest impact on UK horticulture in the near future?
A: The rise in the consumption of premium, healthy and ethical products represent a huge opportunity. They allow growers to differentiate, to move their products away from the commoditised middle ground. However, this move also places demands on the industry, as it requires new learnings about growing techniques, market research, and business practice.
Q: What’s the best piece of advice you can offer today’s growers?
A: The FCC team still sometimes speaks to growers who do not know how much it costs to grow their crop. Growers need to understand the business they are running and how it compares with competitors.
In research published earlier this year, FCC showed the undoubted benefits of benchmarking. 69 percent of farmers who formally benchmark claim a better understanding of costs.
Forty five percent see a better insight on what drives their financial results. Most importantly, 34 percent have seen increased returns and 27 percent have increased the quality of their products. Comparing performance in a systematic way can offer huge benefits to many farmers and growers, so for this reason, I would urge many growers to explore joining a business club.
Q: What’s the next step for the FCC?
A: With a large proportion of the pilots completed, one of the key priorities going forward will be to ensure that the lessons of the research are disseminated across the industry, and we are currently exploring ways of doing this.
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