Owner of fruit-growing business FW Mansfield and Son, Paul Mansfield is an even more familiar name in the top-fruit industry this year. Having recently gained a succession of national awards for work in his field, Mansfield’s success shows no sign of subsiding.
Mansfield and his team produce top-fruit, soft-fruit and stone-fruit for the multiple and wholesale markets and the company has 17 sites spanning more than 3,000 acres in East Kent. All produce is packed from a base at Nickel Farm and is part of the company’s ‘seed to shelf’ program within which all produce is traceable along the supply chain through a state-of-the art packhouse.
Employing more than 150 staff, Mansfield seems to be continually setting precedents in top-fruit production. His growing enterprise is one of the most revered company’s in the industry and the business has gone from strength to strength since Mansfield’s father began growing in 1968.
Then a successful fruit and vegetable retail outfit, FW Mansfield invested in a 20-acre smallholding near Faversham in Kent. Paul Mansfield took over the business in 1994 and has so far excelled, impressing industry insiders with his simple logistical approach, sharp business acumen and the ability to build solid business relationships. Marketing all of its top-fruit with Worldwide Fruit since 2000, Mansfield says many of the business’s varietal developments and new plantings have been achieved with Worldwide Fruit through the Top Fruit Development Committee.
His stature was confirmed with the award of Syngenta Overall Grower of the Year, Spitalfields Market Topfruit Grower of the Year, Sainsbury’s Grower of the Year, East Kent Fruit Society Orchard of the Year...the list continues. In fact, he reveals that 10 of the 20 awards he won this year have been for apples alone. He responds to the question of why he is so successful modestly: “It’s about wanting to do it over a course of years. It’s reward for the effort and work we’ve put in over many years - effort and investment. You can have growers that aren’t any good, or growers that are excellent.” He says. “Our aim is to be the best in fresh produce. It’s our goal and that’s what we are striving towards year on year. We live and learn, and put our strategies into action.”
The fact that Mansfield isn’t afraid to follow new trends is undoubtedly a major factor in his achievements to date. Currently the farms contain Braeburn, Bramley, Gala and Cox - the latter of which is the business’s biggest crop at around 4,500t each year. But Mansfield’s also grows the niche varieties Russet, Spartan, Worcester Pearmain, Early Windsor, and Jazz and has exclusivity on the Empire variety in the UK: “Each apple’s got its own place.” He says. “Some of them are niche varieties - the market is fulfilled. It’s not losing more share but its not gaining market share.”
Mansfield says he thinks part of the reason for his success is his company’s ability to adapt to the evolution of the apple industry and explains his plans for the future reflect this. The next stage in his approach will see the business’s Braeburn production increase dramatically, along with a greater production of the branded variety Jazz - nearly 50,000 new trees are being planted this year. Mansfield says this is in response to a greater demand for certain varieties: “It’s going to continue in future, changing varieties to suit customer needs...What the customer requires is changing year upon year and we have to change with their requirements.” He says. “In five years we hope to be producing 20,000 bins of Braeburn at the cost of other varieties - it’s going to have an impact on imports for sure. It’s a product, which we [in the UK] can grow well cosmetically but with a better flavour.
“We are planting one clone to give consistent quality to eating and the look of the apple and anticipate the market [for Braeburn] to start in mid November and go through until the beginning of June. “In three years we’ll have more Braeburn than Gala and Cox put together.”
Mansfield explains that the new plantings of Braeburn are purely designed as a direct displacement of imported Braeburn and the amount of the overall apple acreage will only increase by 25 per cent, although some varieties will reduce slightly to compensate for the growth in Braeburn.
He talks candidly about the changes experienced by the UK apple industry over the last two decades, and illustrates that without keeping up-to-date with consumer requirements, there is limited success to be had: “The whole industry has changed over the last 20 years and what we’ve done is mirrored those changes,” he says. Like so many industries, Mansfield explains that apple production is largely dictated by fashions: “In apples, the most fashionable now are bi-coloured whereas 20 years ago the popular apples were Granny Smiths, Cox, Golden Delicious and ‘red’ apples. Now 75 per cent of apples grown are bicoloured and 25 per cent block - 20 years ago it was the complete reverse.”
But aside from what colour apple consumers want to eat, he explains that the British industry has become a much less forgiving arena with apples making far less profits than they used to: “Demands have increased dramatically, there’s more pressure on the grower...the cost of growing has soared and difficulties ahead apply with a deflationary product. We were seeing better returns 20 years ago than we are now and we were growing at a third of the price,” he says. Craig Rook, farm manager at FW Mansfield agrees: “There’s much more competition nowadays. It’s not as easy as it was 20 years ago,” he says.
But despite a decrease in returns, Mansfield says that perversely, the standards required from apple growers have increased dramatically: “The emphasis is to grow more kilos per hectare of very high quality product. Margins eroded because the retailer demands on the product, and they don’t want waste levels, they want repeat customer buying,” he says. And Mansfield clearly gets this right. He claims not to be a big risk-taker, but relies on proper research and foresight: “We do our homework...we consistently look at movements and trends. It’s about sustainability, picking dates, continuity of supply, picking dates and predicting risk.”
The main problem he can think to mention is something completely out of his control: “The weather.” He says. “But we can’t do a lot about that. We are in a marginal fruit-growing area, which means we need to be very good at our jobs. It’s more trying and testing and weather is a major factor in all of this.”
As well as the obvious strength of business plan put into action at the hq, Mansfield’s is clearly not work-shy and every part of the Mansfield team from pickers to management seems dedicated to the standards of fruit produced. Heading the team, Mansfield is clearly a force to be reckoned with, and Rook is in as good a place to judge as any: “Paul knows what the business is about and his commitment is 110 per cent. All he thinks about is fruit growing, fruit growing, fruit growing. He recognises trends and which varieties are special. He’s got foresight and his commitment is second to none at the end of the day.”
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