Richard Baker, who had been seconded by MBM to run its HZPC business, heads up the new UK arm of the €200 million seed company based in Joure, southern Friesland. HZPC is a six-year-old, purely potato business, and it has around 70 varieties in the global marketplace.
Eight of those are being marketed in the UK already, the most successful to date being the chipper Victoria, French fry type Asterix, crisping variety Courage, and Vivaldi, Annabelle and Carlita, which are popular with prepackers. “HZPC is very much a variety based business,” says Baker. “And there are some very interesting new opportunities for the UK. I was previously dedicating around 80 per cent of my focus on the development of HZPC’s UK business, but now with the opportunity to devote 100 per cent of my time to it, I really hope to drive it forward.
“The initial stages have been largely about handling the changeover process, it has been evolutionary rather than radical, and it responded to the requirements of our customers as they began to need to share greater confidences. But it will make a substantial difference to us as a company, the most notable immediately being the way we manage our trial varieties.” HZPC already has a far greater depth of young seedlings on display at its Sleaford demonstration site for UK customers.
“Our short-term aim is to continue to develop our varieties that already have a firm grip in the marketplace - Annabelle, Carlita and Courage,” says Baker.
Trials are also at an advanced stage on Mozart, an exciting red variety that aims to combine the qualities of Desiree and Romano. “We have five to six hectares of commercial production in place and around 300t of seed in the market,” says Baker. “We are looking to bring the consistent eating quality of Desiree together with the efficiency and yielding ability of Romano - again this is in direct response to the demands of the marketplace.”
The Atkins diet, of course, was the scourge of the potato industry, but HZPC, which represents roughly 40 per cent of the Dutch seed potato industry, has developed a variety with the US market that has already generated huge interest from UK buyers. Adora is a potato with 30 per cent less carbohydrates. “We have a number of people here who have asked for it and they are evaluating its qualities. It was developed as an early baking potato in the US and received a lot of exposure in the non-agricultural press because of the interest in lo-carb diets,” Baker says.
The challenge - in order to establish Adora in the marketplace - is to transform it from an early variety into a year-round offer, which would entail production in different regions and countries. This should not prove a problem, says Baker. “The economics of production are no different to any other variety, so there should be no resistance from growers to planting it. It has been grown in the UK before, so we have experience here and growers will be either revisiting or trying Adora for the first time. If there is no upside or downside to the product, the only question is whether there is a market for it - and we certainly have that.”
The short and medium term activities are part of a longer term plan of course. “Eventually we would like to establish a major variety in each of the four sectors,” he adds. “I think we’ll get there and we have strong varieties in the pre-pack and salad sectors already and we can offer a real point of difference. The French fry and crisping sectors are much harder in many ways. We have a small presence at the moment, with varieties such as early maincrop type Morene, but to make the major players such as McCains and PepsiCo consider adopting a new variety, there has to be a real paradigm shift.
“It is a long-term goal and difficult to measure. At times you can be chugging along at 3mph and suddenly you have to slip through the gears very quickly to 100mph to keep up.”
Establishing a dedicated, physical presence in the UK will give the local team, working alongside their HZPC colleagues, the opportunity to better gauge the UK market as opposed to alternative HZPC sales regions and increase its targeting by responding to trends and long-term views of customers, says Baker.
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